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Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room. As the 42-year-old Saddam coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the supposed plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Twenty-two people were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Saddam videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country. The plot claim was a lie. But in a few terrifying minutes on July 22, 1979, Saddam eliminated his...

The extraordinary, turbulent, hugely controversial life of Saddam Hussein was brought to an end at dawn this morning, between 0530 and 0545 local time, just as the call to prayer was sounding across Baghdad. Saddam carried a copy of the Koran to his execution A small group of Iraqis, including a representative of the Iraqi prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric, were brought to witness the execution. It took place in an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as 'Camp Justice', a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya, outside the Green Zone. Several recent executions have...

Poland welcomes Saddam execution Berlin, Dec 30, IRNA The Polish government expressed support for the hanging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, DPA reported Saturday. Deputy Foreign Minister Pawel Kowal told Polish radio that although he opposes the death penalty, he would make an exception in the case of Saddam. Iraqis will soon forget Saddam, the Polish official said. Saddam died by hanging around dawn after an Iraqi appeals court upheld an earlier death verdict against him for his role in the 1982 killings of Shiites.

SADDAM HANGS Just in time for Eid, the Iraqis decided Saddam Hussein was one old acquaintance who really should be forgot. Despite The New York Times’ protests that it’s all been too rushed, it’s three years since the mass murderer was pulled from his spider hole. Here’s what I wrote in The Spectator in December 2003, outlining the possible approaches to the trial: In a nutshell: A courtroom in Baghdad: good. A courtroom in The Hague: bad. Iraqi and coalition judges: good. International jet-set judges: bad. Swift execution: good. Playing Scrabble with Slobo in the prison library for the next...

Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged, a witness said Saturday. The Iraqi government executed Hussein before dawn as punishment for his role in a massacre of his own people, more than two decades before he was toppled by a U.S.-led invasion. A video of the execution broadcast on Al-Iraqiya state television showed Hussein, dressed in a black overcoat, being led into a room by three masked guards. (Watch noose placed around Hussein's neck -- graphic content, viewer discretion advised ) A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of...

Defiant to the end, Saddam Hussein mocked Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr moments before he was hanged, a witness said Saturday.

Former Iraqi Dictator and Mass Murderer Saddam Hussein has been executed! From My Way News: BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a U.S.-led war that left his country in shambles, was taken to the gallows clutching a Quran and hanged Saturday.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. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was...

Fox News is running a story that it has confirmed that Saddam has been handed over to Iraqi authorities. Fox says that an Iraqi judge has said Saddam will be executed tomorrow at the latest.

The men who were hanged alongside Saddam (AFP) 30 December 2006 BAGHDAD - The two men hanged alongside Saddam on Saturday were Barzan Ibrahim Hassan Al Tikriti, one of Saddam’s three half-brothers and a former director of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, and Awad Ahmed Al Bandar Al Sadun, former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam’s office. Like Saddam, they were sentenced to death for their roles in the massacre of 148 Iraqi Shias from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed attempt on the former dictator’s life in 1982. BARZAN IBRAHIM...

Dec. 30, 2006 - Ali Al Massedy was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator's execution at dawn on Saturday. "I saw fear, he was afraid," Ali told NEWSWEEK minutes after returning from the execution. Wearing a rumpled green suit and holding a Sony HDTV video camera in his right hand, Ali recalled the dictator's last moments. "He was saying things about injustice, about resistance, about how these guys are terrorists," he says. On the way to...

BAGHDAD, Dec 30 (KUNA) -- The ousted dictator Saddam Hussein as executed early on Saturday in the Baghdad northern suburban district of Al-Kathmiah, a member of the legislative authority said. Sami Al-Askari said in a statement that Saddam was hanged in a building that used to be occupied by the intelligence authority of the toppled Baath regime. Muwaffak Al-Rabiee, the national security advisor, said Saddam appeared subdued and panicked when he was dragged to the gallows, and that he made no will ahead of the execution. With the announcement of the execution many Iraqis opened fire into the air...

Iraqi TV is now showing edited footage of the execution of Saddam.

The Muslim religious holiday Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, is meant to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son on God's orders. But now the holiday could also be associated with something else: the execution of ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

SADDAM Hussein was given a proper trial and was dealt with according to Iraqi law, Prime Minister John Howard said today after the execution of the former Iraqi dictator. Saddam was executed in Baghdad, four days after an Iraqi court upheld the death sentence handed down after he was convicted for the 1982 massacre in the Iraqi city of Dujail. "The real significance is that this man has been given a proper trial, due process was followed," Mr Howard said. "There was an appeal that was dismissed and he has been dealt with in accordance with the law of Iraq."...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator who spent his last years in captivity after his ruthless regime was toppled by the U.S.-led coalition in 2003, was hanged before dawn Saturday for crimes committed in a brutal crackdown during his reign. The execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television. "This dark page has been turned over," Rubaie said. "Saddam is gone. Today Iraq is an Iraq for all the Iraqis, and all the Iraqis are looking forward. ... The [Hussein] era has gone forever."...

(CNN) -- A witness to Saddam Hussein's execution in Baghdad said that celebrations broke out after the former dictator died, and that there was "dancing around the body." "Saddam's body is in front me," said an official in the prime minister's office when CNN telephoned. "It's over." In the background, Shiite chanting could be heard. When asked about the chanting, the official said "These are employees of the prime minister's office and government chanting in celebration." The execution took place shortly after 6 a.m. (10 p.m. Friday ET), Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told Iraqi television. A power outage...

Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party. The conspirators, he said, were in that very room. As the 42-year-old Saddam coolly puffed on a cigar, names of the supposed plotters were read out. As each name was called, secret police led them away. Twenty-two people were executed. To make sure Iraqis got the word, Saddam videotaped the entire proceeding and distributed copies across the country. The plot claim was a lie. But in a few terrifying minutes on July 22, 1979, Saddam eliminated his...

A group of Iraqi-Americans gathered late Friday at a mosque in anticipation of Saddam Hussein's execution, praying for the death of the former Iraqi dictator as drivers outside honked horns in celebration. Dave Alwatan wore an Iraqi flag around his shoulders and flashed a peace sign to everyone he passed at the Karbalaa Islamic Educational Center in this suburb of Detroit, a city that has one of the nation's largest concentrations of people with roots in the Middle East. "Peace," he said, grinning and laughing. "Now there will be peace for my family." Alwatan, 32, said Saddam's forces tortured and...

Statement of President Bush on the death by hanging of Saddam Hussein, as provided by the White House: Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime. Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule...