Saddam executed by hanging

Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reacts in court during the Anfal genocide trial in Baghdad December 21, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

    BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 (Xinhua) -- Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging early Saturday, senior Iraqi officials confirmed.

    "It was between 5:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) and 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT)" and " the whole thing was filmed," Foreign Ministry official Mariam al-Rayis, who attended the execution, told the state television.

    National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie denied earlier reports that Saddam was executed along with his two co-accused, saying Saddam was hanged alone.

    "He (Saddam) did not ask for anything and was carrying a Quran," as he was taken to the gallows with his hands bound behind him, al-Rubaie told the Iraqi official television station Al-Iraqiya.

    "Saddam's execution was 100 percent Iraqi and the American side did not interfere," he stressed.

    Meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi told the BBC on Saturday that Saddam had been executed.

    "I believe so, yes. He has been executed. It has been officially announced that he has been executed," Abbawi said in a phone interview with BBC News 24.

    Earlier, U.S.-backed Iraqi TV Al Hurra reported the former Iraqi leader was hanged shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) Saturday.

    Arabic satellite channel Arabiya also reported the execution had taken place.

    The execution took place after Saddam, who was born on April 28, 1937, and was deposed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was handed over to the Iraqi authorities from a U.S. camp near Baghdad international airport where he had been held.

    On Nov. 5, a panel of five Iraqi judges sentenced Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Ahmed al-Bandar to death by hanging for the killing of 148 people in Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad.

    On Dec. 3, the defense lawyers of Saddam officially appealed to the higher court against the death penalty imposed on Saddam and another two co-defendants.

    However, the Iraqi appellate court chief announced on Tuesday that the court had upheld the death sentence for Saddam Hussein.

    Earlier on Friday afternoon, a U.S. judge refused a last-minute request to stay the execution as Saddam's lawyers filed the court challenge.

    "Petitioner Hussein's application for immediate, temporary stay of execution is denied," U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said after a hearing over the telephone with attorneys.