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Saddam Hussein executed

Atul Aneja

In a final act of defiance, he refused to don the customary hood offered by the hangman

FINAL MOMENTS: This video image released by Iraqi television shows masked guards wrapping a piece of black cloth round the neck of the former Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, moments before his execution in Baghdad on Saturday. — Photo: AP

DUBAI: The former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged just before daybreak on Saturday, bringing to an end an era which has left a powerful imprint on West Asia.

Iraq's state-run television announced that Mr. Hussein was executed just before 6 a.m. local time. Fourteen Iraqi officials witnessed the hanging at a former military intelligence facility in northern Baghdad.

Footage broadcast on Iraqi television showed masked men taking Mr. Hussein to the gallows. He was dressed in a white shirt and a dark overcoat, instead of routine prison clothes.

A dark piece of cloth was wrapped round his neck as he approached the gallows platform. In a final act of defiance, he refused to don the customary hood offered by the hangman, moments before his execution. A Shia-run television station subsequently aired a grainy, low-quality film of his body wrapped in a white cloth.

Sami-al-Askari, political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri-al-Maliki, who witnessed the execution, was quoted by AP as saying that Mr. Hussein shouted "God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab" before the rope was put round his neck.

Earlier American troops handed over Mr. Hussein to the Iraqi officials, who took him to a judge's chamber, before leading him to the execution room.

Mr. Hussein's two co-defendants, the former military intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim-al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed-al-Bandar, a former chief judge, would be executed at a later date.

An Iraqi court sentenced all the three to death on November 5 following a controversial yearlong trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail.

Mr. Hussein began to shape Iraq's destiny since 1968, when he successfully organised a coup that brought the Ba'ath party to power. He assumed the Presidency in 1979, and was involved in three wars — one with Iran and two with the Americans, in 1991 and 2003.

Analysts say that the execution of Mr. Hussein, a Sunni, was likely to exacerbate sectarian tensions in Iraq.

Within hours of the hanging, over 75 people were killed and 125 wounded in a series of bomb blasts in Shia areas across the country.

Curfew was imposed in the city of Samarra, after 500 people staged a march in protest against the execution.

Shiekh Yahya-al-Attawi, a leading cleric in Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit described Mr. Hussein as a "holy warrior" and a "martyr."

In contrast, Sadr city, a power base of Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, witnessed celebrations as news of the death of Mr. Hussein spread. Outside Iraq, the execution outraged pilgrims performing Haj in Makkah, because the execution came on a major religious holiday, Reuters reported.

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