BAGHDAD, 30 December 2006 - Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn for crimes against humanity specifically for his involvement in the Dujail case in which he was charged with genocide. The hanging, which took place at a Justice Ministry facility in northern Baghdad, closes the book on legal proceedings against Saddam who was toppled by a U.S. invasion in 2003. Iraqi State television aired film of Saddam, looking composed and talking with the masked hangman as he placed the noose around his neck on the gallows. It did not show the death or the body.
According to an official witness the ousted president, who was bound but wore no blindfold, had said a brief prayer.
"We heard his neck snap," Sami Al-Askari, a political ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told the media after the execution.
The prime minister called on Saddam's Sunni Baathist followers to end their insurgency. The state television showed him signing the order for a hanging whose swiftness following the rejection of an appeal has delighted Shi'ites who suffered under Saddam.
