30th
December 2006
The former
Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, has been hanged in
northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
Iraqi
state TV showed images of Saddam Hussein going to the
gallows before dawn in a building his intelligence
services once used for executions.
However
the moment of his execution was not shown. Pictures of
his body wrapped in a shroud were later broadcast on TV.
A
representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim
cleric were among a group of Iraqis present.
Saddam
Hussein were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5
November after a year-long trial over the killings of
148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.
In a
statement, Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, said the
execution had closed a dark chapter in Iraq's history.
"Justice,
in the name of the people, has carried out the death
sentence against the criminal Saddam, who faced his fate
like all tyrants, frightened and terrified during a hard
day which he did not expect," it read.
Holding
Koran
A small
group of Iraqis witnessed the execution in a spartan
concrete-lined chamber at an Iraqi compound known by the
Americans as Camp Justice in the suburb of Khadimiya.
They
watched as a judge read out the sentence to Saddam
Hussein, 69. 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."
Images of
Saddam Hussein's body were also broadcast on Iraqi TV,
still dressed in his overcoat and wrapped in a white
sheet.
His body
is reported to have been flown by helicopter to an
unknown location.
Sources
close to the Iraqi prime minister said the body would be
buried in Iraq, but would not reveal where.
Saddam
Hussein's daughters Raghad and Rana had earlier asked
that their father be buried temporarily in Yemen.
According
to their spokeswoman, Rasha Oudeh, the two women watched
their father's final moments on TV.
"They felt
very proud as they saw their father facing his
executioners so bravely, standing up," Ms Oudeh said.
"They pray that his soul rests in peace."
Mixed
reaction
News of
Saddam Hussein's execution was announced on state-run
Iraqiya television, as patriotic music and images of
national monuments were played out.
It
initially said his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and
Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also
hanged, but Mr Rubaie later said only Saddam Hussein was
hanged.
The others
will be executed some time after the Eid festival ends
next week, he said.
Other Arab
TV stations aired live footage of the sunrise over
Baghdad's Firdous Square, where US Marines pulled down a
statue of Saddam Hussein, after he was deposed in April
2003.
There were
jubilant scenes in the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr
City, with people dancing in the streets and sounding
their car horns, and in the southern city of Basra.
But in
Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, where a curfew was
imposed, the news sparked protests from supporters.
Protests
were also reported in Samarra and Ramadi.
'Held to
account'
US
President George W Bush hailed the execution as "an
important milestone" on the road to building an Iraqi
democracy, but warned it would not end the deadly
violence there.
He said:
"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.
"It 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."
UK Foreign
Secretary Margaret Beckett welcomed the fact that Saddam
Hussein had been tried by an Iraqi court "for at least
some of the appalling crimes he committed" and said "he
has now been held to account".
France
called on Iraqis to "look towards the future and work
towards reconciliation and national unity".
Footage of
Saddam at the gallows:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7532034279766935521&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en
Letter
from Saddam Hussein to the People of Iraq
The
following is a full English translation of the letter
written by Saddam Hussein to the Iraqi people, as
released yesterday at the AlBasrah.net website.
Source:
http://www.albasrah.net/ar_articles_2006/1206/sadam_261206.htm
In the name of God,
the Merciful, the Compassionate:
'Say:
Nothing will happen to us except what Allah has decreed
for us: He is our protector: and in Allah let the
Believers put their trust'
Oh, great people of
Iraq. Oh, courageous men of our unrelenting armed
forces. Oh, glorious Iraqi women. Oh, sons of our
glorious nation, the courageous believers in the brave
resistance.
In the past, I was, as
you all know, in the battlefield of jihad and struggle.
God, exalted be He, wished that I face the same again in
the same manner and the same spirit in which we were
before the revolution but with a problem that is greater
and harsher.
Oh
beloved, this harsh situation, which we and our great
Iraq are facing, is a new lesson and a new trial for the
people by which to be judged, each depending on their
intention, so that it becomes an identifier before God
and the people in the present and after our current
situation becomes a glorious history. It is, above all,
the foundation upon which the success of the future
phases of history can be built. In this situation and in
no other, the veritable are the honest and faithful and
the opposing are the false. When the insignificant
people use the power given to them by the foreigners to
oppress their own people, they are but worthless and
lowly. In our country only good must result from what we
are experiencing:
'The scum
disappears like froth cast out; while that which is for
the good of mankind remains on the earth'
God is all knowing.
Oh great nation. Oh
people of our nation and of mankind. Many of you have
known the owner of this letter for his truthfulness, his
honesty, his purity, and his genuine concern over his
people, for his wisdom, his vision, his justice, and
for his firmness in dealing with issues and for his
watchfulness over the properties of the people and of
the country, and for living according to his conscience
and his mind. His heart aches for the poor and he does
not rest until he helps in improving their condition and
attends to their needs. His heart contains all his
people and his nation, and he craves to be honest and
faithful without differentiating between his people
except on the basis of their efforts, efficiency, and
patriotism.
Here I am speaking
today in your name and for your eyes and the eyes of our
nation and the eyes of the just, the people of the
truth, wherever their banner is hoisted.
Oh Iraqi people, oh
our people and our folks and the folks of every honest
and glorious man and woman in our country. You have
known your brother and leader as well as his own family
knew him. He never stooped to the cruel oppressors. He
remained a sword and an authority on what is loved by
the honest and abhorred by the oppressors.
Is this not the
position which you would like your brother, your son,
and your leader to take? Yes, this is how Saddam Hussein
was described, and this is how his positions will be. If
his positions did not, God forbid, correspond with his
description, then he would despise himself. These are
the stands which anyone who leads you and leads the
nation must take, after God the Almighty and the all
capable.
Here I am offering my
soul as a sacrifice. If the Merciful wants it, he will
raise it up whenever He commands it to be with the
companions and the martyrs, and if He sees that He wants
to postpone His decision, He will, because He is the
Merciful and the Compassionate. He is the One who
created us, and to Him we return. 'Patience is most
fitting.' It is God whose help can be sought against
the unjust.
Oh brothers, oh great
nation. I call upon you to preserve the convictions
which made you worthy of the faith that you have and to
be the guiding light for civilization. Make your land,
the birthplace of the father of the prophets, Abraham of
Al-Khalil, and other prophets, and to preserve the
values which officially and justifiably gave you the
title of greatness for the sake of your country and your
people. He offered all his life and the life of his
family, young and old from the very beginning to this
great nation and its faithful and honorable people and
never gave up. In spite of all the difficulties and the
storms which we and Iraq had to face, before and after
the revolution, God the Almighty did not want death for
Saddam Hussein. But if He wants it this time, it is His
creation. He created it and He protected it until now.
Thus, by its martyrdom, He will be bringing glory to a
faithful soul, for there were souls that were younger
than Saddam Hussein that had departed and had taken this
path before him. If He wants it martyred, we thank Him
and offer Him gratitude, before and after. 'Patience is
most fitting.' It is God whose help can be sought
against the unjust.
In the shadow of the
greatness of the Creator, may He be exalted, and His
protection, you must remember that God has bestowed on
you different types of characteristics that make you a
good example to be followed in love, pardon,
forgiveness, and coexistence. The great make up of
capabilities and resources which the Merciful had made
available to you, was not meant to go to waste. He
wanted it to be a test that would refine the souls.
Hence there were some who joined your lines and others
who joined the North Atlantic Treaty. Others were the
Persians who are hateful as a result of their rulers'
actions who had inherited Kisra's inheritance in place
of Satan. He tempted those who obeyed him to turn
against their own people or against their neighbors or
tempted the Zionist aspirations and hatefulness to move
their representative in the American White House to
carry out the aggression and to create animosity that
has nothing to do with humanity and faith. On the basis
of faith, love, and peace, which bring glory and not
bitterness to the glorified, you built the edifice and
raised it without any fight or spite, and on this basis
you were enjoying glory and peace in your beautiful
colors, under the country's flag, not in the distant
past, especially after your distinguished revolution,
your 17th revolution, on 30 July 1968. You realized
victory and you carried it in the color of the one great
Iraq as loving brothers in the battle trenches or in the
construction fields. The enemies of your country, the
invaders and the Persians, found that your unity stands
as a barrier between them and your enslavement. They
planted and grounded their hateful old and new wedge
between you. The strangers who are carrying the Iraqi
citizenship, whose hearts are empty or filled with the
hatred that was planted in them by Iran, responded to
it, but how wrong they were to think that they could
divide the noble among our people, weaken your
determination, and fill the hearts of the sons of the
nation with hatred against each other, instead of
against their true enemies that will lead them in one
direction to fight under the banner of God is great: The
great flag of the people and the nation.
Oh brothers! Oh
mujahideen and fighters! For this I call on you now and
I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave
space for a person to be fair. It blinds you and closes
all doors of thinking. Hate prevents you from thinking
straight and from making the right choices and avoiding
the wrong. It blocks your vision and prevents you from
seeing the variables in the mind of those who were
thought of as enemies, including those people who had
gone astray but have changed their direction and have
taken the right path, the path of the noble people and
the glorious nation.
I also call on you,
brothers and sisters, my children and the children of
Iraq. I call on you, oh comrades of jihad; I call on you
not to hate the people of the other countries that
attacked us. You should distinguish between the
decision-makers and the people. Just hate the action.
Even those whose actions deserve to be fought--do not
hate them as human beings. Also, the doers of evil, do
not hate them, but hate the evil deed itself and fight
the evil with what it deserves. Whoever changes to the
better or does good inside or outside Iraq, give him
clemency and open a new page for him because God
forgives and loves whoever forgives out of willingness.
Firmness is necessary if the situation calls for it. To
be accepted by the people and the nation, one should
base things on the law and must be fair and just. One
should not be hostile on the basis of spitefulness and
illegal pursuits.
You should know
brothers, that among the aggressors, there are people
who support your struggle against the invaders, and some
of them volunteered for the legal defense of prisoners,
including Saddam Hussein. Others revealed the scandals
of the invaders and condemned them. Some even wept
profusely and with noble sincerity when they said
goodbye to us when they ended their duty. To this I call
on you to be one loyal nation, kind to itself, to its
nation, and to humanity, and sincere with others and
with oneself.
Dear faithful people,
I bid you farewell, but I will be with the merciful God
who helps those who take refuge in him and who will
never disappoint any honest believer.
God is great. God is
great.
Long live our nation.
Long live humanity in the light of security and peace,
wherever it imparts justice and fairness.
Long live our great
unyielding people. Long live Iraq. Long live Iraq. Long
live Palestine.
Long live jihad and
the mujahideen. Allah Akbar. And the wretched aggressors
shall be repelled.
Saddam Hussein
The
President of the Republic
and the Chief
Commander of the Combatant Armed Forces
