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| Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT). A representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric were present. Footage of him being led to the gallows was later shown on Iraqi state TV. Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former chief judge, are to be executed at a later date. All three were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail. Holding Koran A small group of Iraqis witnessed the execution inside a building at an Iraqi compound known by the Americans as Camp Justice, a secure facility in the northern Baghdad suburb of Khadimeya. They watched as a judge read out the sentence to Saddam Hussein. The former Iraqi leader was carrying a copy of the Koran and asked for it to be given to a friend. Footage broadcast later on Iraqi state TV showed a subdued Saddam Hussein being led to gallows by a group of masked men. He was dressed in a white shirt and dark overcoat, rather than prison garb. Saddam Hussein was led up onto the gallows platform and a dark piece of cloth placed around his neck, followed by the noose. When the hangman stepped forward to put the hood over his head, Saddam Hussein made it clear he wanted to die without it. The hanging itself was not broadcast. The execution procedure took just a few minutes. Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, who witnessed the execution, told the BBC that the former leader went to the gallows quietly: "We took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken." |