Saddam Hussein executed

Saddam prepares for his execution
13 April 2012

The former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was executed in the early hours of this morning. He was hanged just before 3am British time and the footage was shown on Iraqi television.

They added that Saddam put up no resistance on his way to the gallows, merely asking for his copy of the Koran to be passed on to someone. On the gallows, in more defiant mood, Saddam refused to wear a hood and shouted: "God is great."

VIDEO:

(WARNING: The video stops before Saddam is hung but some viewers may find the images disturbing

Special report:

In focus: Saddam Hussein's trial and execution

Early reports suggested that Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and former judge Awad al-Bander were also hanged, but this was later denied by the officials.

US president George Bush welcomed the punishment meted out to Saddam, while Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, speaking on behalf of the Government, welcomed the fact Saddam had been "held to account".

Mrs Beckett said: "I welcome the fact that Saddam Hussein has been tried by an Iraqi court for at least some of the appalling crimes he committed against the Iraqi people. He has now been held to account."

She added that the Government "does not support the use of the death penalty, in Iraq or anywhere else" but added that "we respect the decision" of the Iraqi authorities.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said the statement from Mrs Beckett spoke for the whole government. Saddam went to the gallows following a lengthy trial that began on October 19 last year.

Last month an Iraqi court sentenced the 69-year-old to death over the killings of 148 Shias from the Iraqi village of Dujail in the 1980s.

Mr Bush said Saddam's execution was "the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime".

But he acknowledged that Saddam's death would not halt the wave of violence currently sweeping through Iraq.

Saddam was executed on an Islamic religious holiday and his execution was witnessed by three Iraqi officials - national security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, and Sami al-Askari, political adviser to prime minister Nouri Maliki.

Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shiite neighbourhood of Kazimiyah, al-Askari said

Al-Rubaie told the state-run Iraqi TV station Iraqiyah that only Saddam was executed. "We wanted him to be executed on a special day," he said.

Asked if Saddam resisted, al-Rubaie said no. "He totally surrendered," he said.

He said a judge read the sentence to Saddam, who was taken in handcuffs to the execution room. When he stood in the execution room, photographs and video footage were taken, al-Rubaie said. "He did not ask for anything. He was carrying a Koran and said, 'I want this Koran to be given to this person', a man he called Bander," he said.

Al-Rubaie said he did not know who Bander was. But al-Askari said Saddam had struggled when he was taken from his cell in an American military prison.

He said Saddam was clad completely in black, with a jacket, trousers, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb. He said that Saddam had "refused to have his head covered with a bag", adding that: "Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted, 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab'."

The three officials said al-Tikriti and al-Rubaie would hang after the religious holiday, which ends on Tuesday for Sunnis and Wednesday for Shiites.

On Tuesday, a court rejected Saddam's appeal against his death sentence, prompting his defence lawyers to condemn the decision and call on Arab governments and the United Nations to intervene to stop the execution.

Their pleas were in vain and Saddam, now resigned to his fate, vowed on Wednesday to go the gallows a "true martyr".

His rallying call came in a letter published on a website known to represent Iraq's former ruling party, the Baath Party. The letter read: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs."

Saddam's execution was welcomed by Iraqis. Hamid Alkifaey, a former Iraqi politician, told Sky News: "It is a victory for justice, it is a victory for ordinary Iraqi people over tyranny, it is a victory for reason and it is a day of joy for all human beings."

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