Saddam Hussein was hanged at the end of 2006 for his crimes against humanity.
The former dictator of Iraq was led to the gallows in Baghdad's Kadhimiyya, which houses his former detention centre, before being executed without ceremony in front of Iraqi officials.
His body was then clad in white cloth and taken away in an ambulance and then a helicopter. It was later taken to a private reception at Iraq’s prime minister’s office where some of his former victims were able to view it.
Jawad al-Zubaidi, who testified in Saddam’s trial, saw the body. He said: “When I saw the body in the coffin I cried. “I remembered my three brothers and my father who he had killed. I approached the body and told him, 'This is the well-deserved punishment for every tyrant.’ “Now for the first time my father and three brothers are happy.” Saddam's fate was sealed yesterday when the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, swept aside wrangling inside the government to sign his death warrant and he was handed over by the Americans to face Iraqi justice. Saddam, 69, was sentenced to death in November with his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar al-Sadun, a Saddam regime judge, for slaughtering 148 Shia Muslims in the village of Dujail in 1982. His execution followed a day of confusion in Baghdad, with members of the government contradicting each other about its timing. But the transfer of Saddam from American to Iraqi custody meant his death was imminent. A late appeal by his lawyers to a US court not to allow Saddam to be handed over because of a pending civil case in America was in vain. Mr Maliki signed his death sentence after approval from the president, Jalal Talabani, and the justice ministry. The prime minister told the families of some of Saddam's victims: "Our respect for human rights means we must implement the execution of Saddam and his aides. Those who reject Saddam's execution are undermining the dignity of the martyrs of Iraq. After the endorsement of the court ruling, no one can prevent the execution sentence against Saddam. There will be neither a revision nor a delay in the implementation of the execution."
The hanging was a landmark in Iraq's turbulent history. Saddam, who became president in 1979, was toppled after the US-led invasion of Iraq in April 2003 and captured hiding in a hole eight months later.
In his 15ft by 15ft cell at Camp Cropper, a US military base next to Baghdad international airport, Saddam would have picked up clues that his time was imminent. On Thursday, two of his half brothers visited him and took away some of his meagre belongings. Khalil al-Dulaimi, his lawyer, claimed that the dictator's death would be a strategic mistake on the part of the American-led allies and the trigger for a sharp rise in violence "and the eruption of a destructive civil war". Brig Gen Abdel Karim Khalaf, the head of the interior ministry command centre, said Iraqi forces were on high alert. "Certainly, this is a big event, putting into effect the execution of this serial killer. We will take measures proportionate to this event. We will put all our forces on the streets so no lives are jeopardised." Senior US officers were also on a high state of alert. Iraqi Shia, who were persecuted by Saddam for decades, celebrated his demise. In the Shia holy city of Najaf, Sayyid Sadralddin al-Qubanji, described Saddam's execution as "God's gift to Iraqis" during his Friday sermon. "Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done. He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighbouring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam."
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