Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq
By Nicholas Brown,WNS Iraq Bureau Chief
BAGHDAD - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT). A representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric were present. Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former chief judge, are to be executed at a later date. All three were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail. A small group of Iraqis witnessed the execution inside a building at an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as Camp Justice, a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya. They watched as a judge read out the sentence to Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi leader was carrying a copy of the Koran and asked for it to be given to a friend. The noose was then placed around his neck. When the hangman stepped forward to put the hood over his head, Saddam Hussein made it clear he wanted to die without it. The execution procedure took just a few minutes.
Iraqi National Security Advisor Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who witnessed the execution, said that the former leader went to the gallows quietly: "When we received him, he was handcuffed and holding the Koran on his chest. And he sat and the judge read the detailed sentence, or conviction, of Saddam Hussein. Then, after that, we took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken." Video footage of the execution is expected to be released as final proof of Saddam Hussein's demise although it is expected to stop short of showing the actual death. News of Saddam Hussein's execution was broadcast on state-run Iraqiya television, as patriotic music and images of national monuments were played out. It initially said Saddam Hussein was hanged first, followed by Barzan and then Bandar.
However, Iraqi national security adviser, Mouwafak al-Rubaie, later said only Saddam Hussein was hanged. "We wanted him to be executed on a special day," Mr al-Rubaie told Iraqiya, adding that Saddam Hussein "totally surrendered" and did not resist. Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar are to be executed some time after the Eid festival ends next week, he said. Other Arab TV stations aired live footage of the sunrise over Baghdad's Firdous Square, where US Marines pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein, after he was deposed in April 2003. There were jubilant scenes in the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr City, with people dancing in the streets and sounding their car horns. But Saddam's own Sunni tribesman were angered by his treatment and may well protest once more.
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