One day before the New Year in a secure facility in northern Baghdad, Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging while clutching a Quran and refusing a hood just before 0600 local time (0300GMT) Saturday December 30. The 69-year-old former Iraqi President strongman, convicted of crimes against humanity, mounted the gallows calmly and accepting his fate with a last defiant warning.
Iraq television while announcing the execution played patriotic music and showed images of national monuments and other landmarks. Photographs and video footage were taken of the whole procedure. Saddam mounted the gallows clad completely in black, with a jacket, trousers, white shirt and shoes, rather than prison garb.
Before being executed AFP reports "He said 'I hope you will be united, and I warn you not to trust the Iranian coalition, because they are dangerous'. He said he was not afraid of anyone," In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate the former dictator's death. Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former strongman was hated by many, mourned by few.
"The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders. History will judge the deeply flawed Dujail trial and this execution harshly," said Human Rights Watch spokesman Richard Dicker....
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