Executioners 'taunted' Saddam
2006-12-31 16:35
Baghdad - Saddam Hussein's Shiite executioners sent him to the gallows with a final mocking taunt, chanting the name of one of his most bitter opponents as they readied his noose and filmed the scene.
In video footage of the execution, apparently captured on a mobile phone and spreading across the Internet on Sunday, members of the party carrying out the Sunni leader's hanging can be heard chanting "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!"
The reference is to Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric whose father Mohammed Bakr Sadr and his uncle were murdered by Saddam's agents, and who has risen to prominence since Saddam's fall as a politician and militia leader.
Saddam appears to react sarcastically to the chant but remains composed in his final minutes. As he drops through the metal trapdoor his last prayer is caught short: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet."
- AFP