Saddam Urges Iraqis to Unite Against 'invaders'

In what may prove to be the final message from Saddam Hussein before his execution, the ousted dictator has urged Iraqis to unite against the US and Iran.

"The enemies of your country, the invaders and the Persians, have found your unity a barrier between you and those who are now ruling you. Therefore, they drove their hated wedge among you," he said in a handwritten letter released by his lawyer today.

"O faithful people, I bid you farewell as my soul goes to God the compassionate," he wrote. "Long live Iraq. Long live Iraq. Long live Palestine. Long live jihad and the mujahideen. God is greatest."

Yesterday, Iraq's highest court turned down his appeal against a death sentence in connection with a mass killing of Shia Muslims in 1982. Following the unsuccessful appeal, Iraqi law requires his hanging within 30 days.

It is understood that Saddam wrote the letter after being sentenced in November but its release was delayed until after his appeal by the US authorities holding him at Camp Cropper, a military prison near Baghdad airport.

In the letter, Saddam depicts himself as a potential martyr: "Here I offer myself in sacrifice. If God almighty wishes, it [my soul] will take me where he orders to be with the martyrs. If my soul goes down this path [of martyrdom] it will face God in serenity ...

"You have known your brother and leader as you have known your own family. He has not bowed down to the tyrants and remained a sword against them," Saddam wrote.

"Oh great people, I call on you preserve the values that enabled you to be worthy of carrying out shouldering the faith and to be the light of civilisation.

"Your unity stands against falling into servitude."

He added: "Oh brave, pious Iraqis in the heroic resistance. Oh sons of the one nation, direct your enmity towards the invaders. Do not let them divide you ... Long live jihad [holy war] and the mujahideen against the invaders."

Saddam said he was writing the letter because his lawyers had told him that the court would give him an opportunity to say a final word.

"But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence - dictated by the invaders - without presenting the evidence," he wrote.