Endgame for a Dictator: Saddam Sentenced to Hang

Saddam Hussein, who ruled Iraq for 24 brutal years before being ousted by the US-led invasion in 2003, was sentenced to death by hanging in a Baghdad court yesterday for crimes against humanity.

The sentence, which was delivered in a short but tumultuous hearing that echoed the mayhem of the trial itself, sparked off celebrations across much of the country in defiance of an official curfew, and triggered protests in Sunni areas, reflecting the divisions facing Iraq more than three years after the dictator's fall.

Saddam's rule was marked by mass killing and torture, but the death sentence was for just one episode - the massacre of 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail, the site of an assassination attempt against him in 1982.

The verdict was welcomed by the Bush administration, just two days before pivotal US congressional elections. George Bush described it as "a milestone in the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law." Speaking in Texas before setting off on a campaign tour, he thanked American soldiers for their part in Saddam's downfall. "Today, the victims of this regime have received a measure of justice that many thought would never come."

Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, whose Dawa party had been behind the Dujail assassination attempt, portrayed the trial as an Iraqi Nuremberg. "The Saddam Hussein era is in the past now, as was the era of Hitler and Mussolini," he said. "We want an Iraq where all Iraqis are equal before the law ... The policy of discrimination and persecution is over."

But the verdict did not meet with universal jubilation. The EU welcomed it, but expressed reservations about the death penalty, as did the Vatican. Russia said the timing was suspect, coming so close to the US elections and even Iraqis pathologically opposed to Saddam expressed regret that the ruling would not save the country.

"What difference is his execution going to make to the chaos in Iraq?" asked Aziz Majeed, a Kurd from Irbil. "I hate Saddam, of course I do. But I can't blame him for the current situation - my country has been turned into the most dangerous place on earth. Where is the freedom the Americans promised?"

Lawyers and human rights organisations warned that the judicial process had been far from ideal, prone to political interference and reduced on more than one occasion to the farcical .

In the Sunni community the verdict drew grave warnings that things would get worse. "This government will be responsible for the consequences, with the deaths of hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands," said Salah al-Mutlaq, who heads the second largest Sunni bloc in parliament, part of the government of national unity.

The death sentence is subject to an automatic appeal, and it is unlikely to be carried out before next year.

The panel of five judges also handed out death penalties to Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother who was a former head of the secret police, the mukhabarat, and Awad Ahmad al-Bandar, the former chief judge in the Ba'ath regime's revolutionary court.

Taha Yassin Ramadan, the former Iraqi vice president, was given a life sentence, while three other local Ba'ath party officials in Dujail were given 15 years each. Mohammed Azawi, also a former Ba'ath official in the Dujail region, was acquitted due to lack of evidence.

The curfew ordered by the government quickly collapsed after the verdict was read out. In Shia areas, such as the Sadr City district of Baghdad, people took to the streets to cheer and shoot in the air in celebration. In the Baghdad Sunni Arab stronghold of Adhamiya, armed clashes broke out between residents and Iraqi security forces, leaving several dead.