Saddam Hussein hanged - TV
2006-12-30 05:38
Baghdad - US-backed Iraqi television
station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by
hanging shortly before 06:00 (03:00 GMT) on Saturday.
Arabic satellite channel Arabiya also reported the execution
had taken place.
The former Iraqi president ousted in April 2003 by a
US-led invasion was convicted in November of crimes against
humanity over the killings of 148 Shi'ite villagers from Dujail
after a failed assassination bid in 1982.
An appeals court upheld the death penalty on Tuesday and the
government rushed through the procedures to hang him by the end
of the year and before the Eid al-Adha holiday that starts on
Saturday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
The government had kept details of its plans shrouded in
secrecy amid concerns it could spark a violent backlash from his
former supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil war.
Anger
The execution will delight Iraq's majority Shi'ites, who
faced oppression during Saddam's three-decade rule, but may
anger some in his resentful Sunni minority.
Some Kurdish leaders had sought a delay so they too could
see justice for the man they accuse of genocide against them.
Saddam's conviction on November 5 was hailed by US President
George W Bush as a triumph for the democracy he promised to
foster in Iraq after the invasion almost four years ago.
With US public support for the war slumping as the number
of American dead approaches 3 000, Washington is likely to
welcome the death of Saddam, despite misgivings among many
allies about capital punishment.
But the hanging could complicate efforts by Shi'ite Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki to heal Iraq's sectarian divisions with
violence spiralling out of control and threatening to pitch the
country into full-scale civil war.
Strongman of ME
Once the belligerent strongman of the Middle East, Saddam's
power crumbled when US tanks swept into Baghdad in April 2003.
He fled and was captured in December that year by US soldiers
who found him hiding in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
During his three decades in power, Saddam was accused of
widespread oppression of political opponents and genocide
against Kurds in northern Iraq.
His execution means he will
never face justice on those charges.
Defiant to the end
Defiant to the end, Saddam insisted during his trial that he
was still the president of Iraq.
He said in a letter written after his conviction in November
that he offered himself as a "sacrifice".
"If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face
God in serenity," he wrote in the letter.