Joy and Regret for Those Who Endured a Brutal Regime

In the Seventies Haifa Zangana was imprisoned for six months for opposing Saddam Hussein's Baath regime. Kept in a cell next to the torture chamber, she was stripped and beaten.

But yesterday, when the Iraqi-born novelist saw the images of her oppressor being lead to his death, she felt just one thing: 'I was angry, very angry.' The execution, like other aspects of the invasion she opposed, would deepen sectarian divides, she said.

Watching Saddam's final steps aroused painful memories for Zangana, who now lives in London. Once she was forced into a car by three men and driven out of Bagdhad into the desert. 'They said they were going to execute me. But when we got there they laughed. The feeling is terrible, you don't feel like you are human. I am against execution because of what I went through.' Yesterday she said she 'felt sorry for' the dictator who caused her own pain. Moreover, she thought the trial was a farce that did not provide the answers she and thousands of others crave. 'We did not find out why all those things happened to us,' she said. 'The trial was staged like a Hollywood movie. It did not clarify anything.'

But for others, there was only joy yesterday. Aziz Salih sat in a Kurdish restaurant on Green Lanes in north London and read through reams of text messages from friends. He leaned forward and held out his phone with a smile. Under a heart shape were the words: 'Let us celebrate Eid, let us celebrate the new year and let us celebrate that Saddam has gone.'

'It is a triple celebration,' said Salih, who lived in Iraq until 1999 and saw friends disappear under Saddam's rule. It was illegal for the Kurds to celebrate or even to sing, he said. 'I hated him. Today it feels like I have a fresh life, like I am wearing new clothes.'

His colleague, Alan Ali, 19, used to live in the Kurdish town of Halabja. 'My relatives were laughing when they told me he had been hanged,' said Ali. 'We are so grateful. I am so happy. This weekend we will celebrate.'