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December 30th,
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Associated Press |
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Saddam was executed at an Iraqi military base in northern Baghdad Al Jazeera December 30, 2006 Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi
president, has been hanged, Iraqi officials have said. The execution took place
shortly before 6am (03:00 GMT) on Saturday at an Iraqi miltary facility in
northern Baghdad. Iraqi television later
showed footage of Saddam being placed in a noose by hangmen, cutting away
just before his execution. The 69-year-old appeared
calm, chatting to his hangmen as they wrapped his neck in black cloth and
steered him towards the gallows. Iraqi television later
showed footage of his body. Saddam was convicted last
month of the killings of 148 Shias after a failed assassination attempt in
1982. Late on Saturday, a defence
lawyer said Saddam's body was flown on board a US plane to his family
hometown of Tikrit for burial. Lawyer Bushra al-Khalil told
Reuters the body of the former leader was now in Tikrit. Sources told Al Jazeera that
Saddam would be buried at his family burial ground in the village of al-Oja
near Tikrit on Sunday morning. Celebrations After the execution, the
Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, urged Saddam's fellow Baathists to
reconsider their tactics and join the political process. "I urged followers of
the ousted regime to reconsider their stance as the door is still open to
anyone who has no innocent blood on his hands, to help in rebuilding an Iraq
for all Iraqis," he said. In Sadr City, a Shia area of
Baghdad, people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to
celebrate the former leader's death. Kurds also welcomed the
hanging and the office of the Kurdish regional president, Massud Barzani,
issued a statement saying: "We hope that Saddam Hussein's execution will
open a new chapter among Iraqis and the end of using violence against
civilians." Violence in Iraq continued
on Saturday after Saddam's death and at least 30 people were killed when a
bomb exploded in a fish market south of Baghdad in the first. US satisfaction George Bush said that the
execution was an important milestone on the country's path to democracy. "Bringing Saddam
Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important
milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain,
and defend itself," the US president said in a statement. An appeals court had upheld
the death penalty on Tuesday and the Iraqi government rushed through the
procedures to hang Saddam by the end of the year and before the Eid al-Adha
holiday that starts on Saturday. Saddam's half-brother,
Barzan al-Tikriti, and a former judge, Awad al-Bander, also sentenced to death
for their roles in the killings of the villagers in Dujail, will be hanged
after Eid, officials said on Saturday. Hanging footage The execution took place at
an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya. The base was the former headquarters
for Saddam's military intelligence where many of his victims were tortured
and executed in the same gallows. The northern Baghdad
district is also home to one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines. The government had kept
details of the execution plan secret amid concerns that it may provoke a
violent backlash from Saddam's supporters with Iraq on the brink of civil
war. "It was very quick. He
died right away," an official Iraqi witnesses told the Reuters news
agency. "We heard his neck
snap," said Sami al-Askari, a political ally of al-Maliki. Another witness said:
"He seemed very calm. He did not tremble." As guards took him to the
scaffold, according to witnesses, Saddam said: "There is no God but God
and Muhammad is his prophet." Criticism 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 that he will
never face justice on those charges. Others have questioned the timing
of the killing, coming at the beginning of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Saddam insisted during his
trial that he was still the president of Iraq. He said in a letter written
after his conviction 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. ‘Biased’ trial Saddam's defence team and
human rights groups complained that the former Iraqi leader had not recieved
a fair trial. Najeeb Al-Nuaimi, one of the
defence lawyers, told Al Jazeera: "There was bias, the prosecution sided
with their politicians, it was an ethnically established court with three
Shia and one Sunni." The US-based rights group
Human Rights Watch condemned the hanging, saying history would judge his
trial and execution harshly. Richard Dicker, a Human
Rights Watch director, said: "Saddam Hussein was responsible for
horrific, widespread human rights violations, but those acts, however brutal,
cannot justify his execution, a cruel and inhuman punishment." External link: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/00086B05-1552-4329-BB22-02F15D2E25DF.htm Saddam Hussein Dies on
Baghdad Gallows By Christopher Torchia & Qassim Abdul-Zahra Associated Press Writers Saturday December 30, 2006 7:31 PM Baghdad, Iraq - Saddam
Hussein struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to
Iraqi executioners before dawn Saturday. But as his final moments approached
and masked executioners slipped a black cloth and noose around his neck, he
grew calm. In a final moment of
defiance, he refused a hood to cover his eyes. Hours after Saddam faced the
same fate he was accused of inflicting on countless thousands during a
quarter-century of ruthless power, Iraqi state television showed grainy video
of what it said was his body, the head uncovered and the neck twisted at a
sharp angle. A man whose testimony helped
lead to Saddam's conviction and execution before sunrise said he was shown
the body because “everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed.” “Now, he is in the garbage
of history,” said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and
22 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982
assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail. The post-execution footage
showed the man identified as Saddam lying on a stretcher, covered in a white
shroud. His neck and part of the shroud have what appear to be bloodstains.
His eyes are closed. Al-Arabiya satellite
television reported Saturday night that a delegation including the governor
of Salahuddin Province and the head of Saddam's clan retrieved his body from
Baghdad and took it for burial near the executed dictator's hometown of
Tikrit. The broadcaster reported the burial would take place Sunday. The
report could not immediately be verified. Earlier, in Baghdad's Shiite
enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others
fired guns in the air to celebrate. Some hanged an effigy of Saddam. The
government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when
Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence. It was a grim end for the
69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster,
Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to
quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian
conflict. The execution took place
during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching
109. At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the
Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. President Bush said in a
statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice “is
an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can
govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.” He said that the execution
marks the “end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops”
and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq. Within hours of his death,
bombings killed at least 68 people in Iraq, including one planted on a
minibus that exploded in a fish market in a mostly Shiite town south of
Baghdad. Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old
university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air
after he learned of Saddam's death. “Now all the victims' families
will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence,” said Hamza, who lives in
Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad. But people in the
Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his
death. “The president, the leader
Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do
not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior,”
said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque. Police blocked the entrances
to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four
days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets of Tikrit,
carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air, and calling for
vengeance. Security forces also set up
roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra, and a curfew
was imposed after about 500 people took to the streets protesting the
execution of Saddam. A couple hundred people also
protested the execution just outside the Anbar capital of Ramadi, and more
than 2,000 people demonstrated in Adwar, the village south of Tikrit where
Saddam was captured by U.S. troops hiding in an underground bunker. In a statement, Saddam's
lawyers said that in the aftermath of his death, “the world will know that
Saddam Hussein lived honestly, died honestly, and maintained his principles.” “He did not lie when he
declared his trial null,” they said. Saddam's half-brother Barzan
Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the
Revolutionary Court, were not hanged along with their former leader as
originally planned. Officials wanted to reserve the occasion for Saddam
alone. “We wanted him to be
executed on a special day,” National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told
state-run al-Iraqiya television. Sami al-Askari, the
political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told the AP that Saddam
initially resisted when he was taken by Iraqi guards but was composed in his
final moments. He said Saddam was clad in a
black suit, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb. His hat was removed and
his hands tied shortly before the noose was slipped around his neck. Saddam repeated a prayer
after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present. “Saddam later was taken to
the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a hood,” al-Askari
said. “Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: ‘God is
great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab.’” Iraqi state television
showed footage of guards in ski masks placing a noose around Saddam's neck.
Saddam appeared calm as he stood on the metal framework of the gallows. The
footage cuts off just before the execution. Saddam was executed at a former
military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of
Kazimiyah, al-Askari said. During his regime, Saddam had numerous dissidents
executed in the facility, located in a neighborhood that is home to the Iraqi
capital's most important Shiite shrine - the Imam Kazim shrine. The Iraqi prime minister's
office released a statement that said Saddam's execution was a “strong
lesson” to ruthless leaders who commit crimes against their own people. “We strongly reject
considering Saddam as a representative of any sect in Iraq because the tyrant
only represented his evil soul,” the statement said. “The door is still open
for those whose hands are not tainted with the blood of innocent people to
take part in the political process and work on rebuilding Iraq.” The execution came 56 days
after a court convicted Saddam and sentenced him to death for his role in the
killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from Dujail. Iraq's highest court rejected
Saddam's appeal Monday and ordered him executed within 30 days. A U.S. judge on Friday
refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge. U.S. troops cheered as news
of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward
Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt
that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq. “First it was weapons of
mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find
Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial,” said
Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. “So now, what will
be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?” At his death, he was in the
midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88
military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq.
Experts said the trial of his co-defendants was likely to continue despite
his execution. Many people in Iraq's Shiite
majority were eager to see the execution of a man whose Sunni Arab-dominated
regime oppressed them and Kurds. Before the hanging, a mosque preacher in the
Shiite holy city of Najaf on Friday called Saddam's execution “God's gift to
Iraqis.” In a farewell message to
Iraqis posted Wednesday on the Internet, Saddam said he was giving his life
for his country as part of the struggle against the U.S. “Here, I offer my
soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with
the martyrs,” he said. One of Saddam's lawyers,
Issam Ghazzawi, said the letter was written by Saddam on Nov. 5, the day he
was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal in the Dujail killings. Najeeb al-Nauimi, a member
of Saddam's legal team, said U.S. authorities maintained physical custody of
Saddam until the execution to prevent him being humiliated publicly or his
corpse being mutilated, as has happened to previous Iraqi leaders deposed by
force. He said they didn't want anything to happen to further inflame Sunni
Arabs. “This is the end of an era
in Iraq,” al-Nauimi said from Doha, Qatar. “The Baath regime ruled for 35
years. Saddam was vice president or president of Iraq during those years. For
Iraqis, he will be very well remembered. Like a martyr, he died for the sake
of his country.'' Iraq's death penalty was
suspended by the U.S. military after it toppled Saddam in 2003, but the new
Iraqi government reinstated it two years later, saying executions would deter
criminals. Saddam's own regime used
executions and extrajudicial killings as a tool of political repression, both
to eliminate real or suspected political opponents and to maintain a reign of
terror. In the months after he
seized power on July 16, 1979, he had hundreds of members of his own party
and army officers slain. In 1996, he ordered the slaying of two sons-in-law
who had defected to Jordan but returned to Baghdad after receiving guarantees
of safety. Saddam built Iraq into a one
of the Arab world's most modern societies, but then plunged the country into
an eight-year war with neighboring Iran that killed hundreds of thousands of
people on both sides and wrecked Iraq's economy. When the U.S. invaded in
2003, Iraqis had been transformed from among the region's most prosperous
people to some of its most impoverished. Associated Press Writer Will
Weissert contributed to this report. External link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6312287,00.html Saddam
Exchanged Taunts Before Hanging By Steven R. Hurst Associated Press December 30, 2006, 1:49 AM EST Baghdad,
Iraq - Iraqis awoke Saturday to television images of a noose being slipped
over Saddam Hussein's neck and his white-shrouded body, the pre-dawn work of black-hooded
hangmen. They went to bed as new video emerged showing Saddam exchanging
taunts with onlookers before the gallows floor dropped away and the former
dictator swung from the rope. Saddam
was buried shortly before dawn Sunday inside a compound for religious
ceremonies in the center of Ouja, the town where he was born. Few were
present for the interment, according the Salahuddin province governor. In
Baghdad's Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, victims of his three decades of
autocratic rule took to the streets Saturday to celebrate, dancing, beating
drums and hanging Saddam in effigy. Celebratory gunfire erupted across other
Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad and other predominantly Shiite regions of the
country. There
was no sign of a feared Sunni uprising in retaliation for the execution, and
the bloodshed from civil warfare was not far off the daily average - 92 from
bombings and death squads. Outside
the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of the capital, loyalists marched
with Saddam pictures and waved Iraqi flags. Defying curfews, hundreds took to
the streets vowing revenge in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and gunmen paraded
and fired into the air in support of Saddam in Tikrit, his hometown. Still,
authorities imposed curfews sparingly in contrast to the several-day lockdown
put in place after Saddam was sentenced to death Nov. 5. By
several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a
give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was
Iraq's savior, not its tyrant and scourge. "He
said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also
called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the
Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians," Munir Haddad, an
appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting
Corp. Another
witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York
Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: "You have destroyed us.
You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution." "I
have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the
Persian and Americans," Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times. "God
damn you," the guard said. "God
damn you," responded Saddam. New
video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had
sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party,
who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam. Saddam
appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they
were not showing manhood. Then
Saddam began reciting the "Shahada," a Muslim prayer that says
there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an
unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and
posted on a Web site. Saddam
made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word
was Muhammad. The
floor dropped out of the gallows. "The
tyrant has fallen," someone in the group of onlookers shouted. The video
showed a close-up of Saddam's face as he swung from the rope. Then
came another voice: "Let him swing for three minutes." The
responses within Iraq to Saddam's death echoed the larger reaction across the
Middle East, with his enemies rejoicing and his defenders proclaiming him a
martyr. While Iranians and Kuwaitis welcomed the death of the leader who led
wars against each of their countries, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
said the execution prevented exposure of the secrets and crimes the former
dictator committed during his brutal rule. Some
Arab governments denounced the timing of the 69-year-old former president's
hanging just before the start of the most important holiday of the Islamic
calendar, Eid al-Adha. Libya announced a three-day official mourning period
and canceled all celebrations for Eid. Within
Iraq and across the world, the airwaves were alive with pictures of Saddam in
death, a bruise on his cheek, his neck elongated and twisted impossibly to
the right - grisly proof that the man who had tormented and killed so many
during a bloody quarter-century rule was truly dead. But
some Iraqis - like 34-year-old Haider Hamed, a candy store owner in east
Baghdad - wondered what would really change with the execution of Saddam, who
was just four months shy of his 70th birthday. "He's
gone, but our problems continue," said the Shiite Muslim, whose uncle
was killed in one of Saddam's many brutal purges. "We brought problems
on ourselves after Saddam because we began fighting Shiite on Sunni and Sunni
on Shiite." At
least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday, and police said
12 more tortured bodies were found dumped in Baghdad. The U.S. military
announced six more service members - three soldiers and three Marines - were
killed. The
execution took place on the penultimate day of the year's deadliest month for
U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 109. At least 2,998 members of the U.S.
military have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to an
AP count. On
Sunday, Saddam was buried about 2 miles from the graves of his sons Odai and
Qusai in the main town cemetery in Ouja, a small town outside Tikrit. The
sons and a grandson were killed in a gunbattle with the American forces in
Mosul in July 2003. Um
Abdullah, a Sunni and teacher in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, said she
would wear black to mourn the city's favorite son. "Saddam
will be a hero in our eyes," she said. "I have five kids and I will
teach them to take revenge on Americans." Police
blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter
the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took into the
streets, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air and calling for
vengeance. Security
forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold,
Samarra, and a curfew was imposed after about 500 went into the streets to
protest the execution. Among
minority Sunnis there was deep anger, born not only of Saddam's execution but
of the loss of their decades-long political and economic dominance that began
with Saddam's ouster in the U.S. invasion nearly four years ago. "The
president, the leader, Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along
with other martyrs," said Yahya al-Attawi, who led prayer at a towering
Sunni mosque constructed by Saddam in Tikrit. There
were cheers at the cafeteria of a U.S. outpost in Baghdad as soldiers having
breakfast learned Saddam had been hanged. But
members of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 17th Field Artillery Regiment, on patrol
in an overwhelmingly Shiite neighborhood in eastern Baghdad, said the
execution wouldn't get them home any faster - and therefore didn't make much
difference. "Nothing
really changes," said Capt. Dave Eastburn, 30, of Columbus, Ohio.
"The militias run everything now, not Saddam." Staff
Sgt. David Earp, who also fought in 1991's Operation Desert Storm, said the
execution worried him. "In
my opinion, something big is going to happen," said Earp, of Colorado
Springs, Colo. "There will be a response. Probably not today because
they know we are looking for one, but soon." Copyright
2006 Associated Press External link: http://www.courant.com/news/custom/latest/ats-ap_top10dec30,0,4838622,print.story Arab haj pilgrims outraged
at Saddam execution By Souhail Karam Reuters Sat Dec 30, 11:40 AM ET Arab pilgrims in Mecca
expressed outrage on Saturday that Iraqi authorities had chosen to execute
former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on a major religious holiday, saying it
was an insult to Muslims. Sunni Arabs at the haj were
shocked at Saddam's hanging which followed his conviction for crimes against
humanity against Iraqi Shi'ites. "His execution on the
day of Eid ... is an insult to all Muslims," said Jordanian pilgrim
Nidal Mohammad Salah. "What happened is not good because as a head of state,
he should not be executed." The Eid al-Adha, or Feast of
the Sacrifice, marks biblical patriarch Abraham's willingness to kill his son
for God. Muslim countries often pardon criminals to mark the feast, and
prisoners are rarely executed at that time. The death could harden
hatred for Shi'ite Muslims in Saudi Arabia, a bastion of Sunni Islam whose
Islamic orthodoxy - known as Wahhabism - regards Shi'ites as virtual
heretics. "This timing was chosen
to turn our joy during Eid to sadness. I don't say this for grief over Saddam
... but we must ready ourselves for a new enemy from the East," a user
on an Islamist Web site said, referring to Shi'ites in Iran. Saddam, a Sunni, was admired
by many Arabs for standing up to the United States. Haj authorities fear his
death could stoke tensions between Sunni and Shi'ite pilgrims. Eid falls during the 5-day
haj, when more than 2 million Muslims from around the world follow ancient
rites at the Islamic Muslim holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. "I don't want to
believe it. Saddam cannot die. Is this the good news we get on our Eid?"
said Saudi Nawaf al-Harbi. But many Shi'ites regard
Saddam's death as a gift from God. "Congratulations, this
is like two Eids! I hope God will not have mercy on him," Iraqi Nadir
Abdullah said amid a group of jubilant pilgrims. Preoccupied Security was already
heightened for this haj season because of sectarian strife between Sunnis and
Shi'ites in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. Haj pilgrims dress in simple
white garments that can disguise differences of sect and nationality. Many
come from outside the Middle East and on Saturday most were preoccupied with
the next stage of the rites, the symbolic stoning of the devil at the Jamarat
Bridge. But many felt Saddam's
execution would only worsen sectarian violence in Iraq. "This is unbelievable.
Things will not improve in Iraq now that Saddam is dead," said a Syrian
pilgrim, Abu Mostafa. "There will be more violence and more Arab anger
toward the West." For Iraqi Kurds like Aladdin
Suleiman Mohammad, the execution was a "fair decision" regardless
of timing, though it dashed hopes of justice for crimes against Kurds. Saddam's second trial on
charges of war crimes against Iraqi Kurds in what is known as the
"Anfal" or "Spoils of War" campaign, had been due to
resume next month. But many Arabs said if
anyone should be put on trial it was the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government that
backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, which overthrew Saddam. "They are American
collaborators, those in Iraq. They should be executed, not Saddam
Hussein." said Mohammad Mousa, on haj from Lebanon. "Saddam Hussein
is the most honorable of all of them. He is the most honorable Arab. They
will go to hell, he will go to heaven." Copyright © 2006 Reuters
Limited. All rights reserved. External link: http://tinyurl.com/yhsmbl |