Special Report: World reactions on execution of Saddam

Special Report: Execution of Saddam

Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

An undated framegrab from mobile phone footage off the internet shows former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein with a noose around his neck prior to his execution in Baghdad Dec. 30, 2006. (Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

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    BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- The Iraqi authorities reported Wednesday the arrest of an official who recorded Saddam Hussein's execution on a cell phone camera.

    The adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not identify the person, but said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation."

    "The government has arrested the person who made the video of Saddam's execution," the adviser said.

    Iraqi state television aired an official video of the hanging, which had no audio and never showed Saddam's actual death. But the cell phone video showed Saddam, being taunted in his final moments, with witnesses shouting "go to hell" before he dropped through the gallows floor and swung dead at the end of a rope.

    The unruly scene made on the cell phone camera was aired on Al Jazeera television and posted on the Internet, prompting a worldwide outcry and big protests among Iraq's people, particularly the minority Sunnis.

    Some Sunnis have taken to the streets in mostly peaceful protests in the days since Saddam's execution, protesting the manner in which he was executed.

    Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki ordered the Interior Ministry to investigate the case to know how the video reached Al Jazeera and Internet for public viewing.

    Meanwhile, an Iraqi prosecutor who was also present at the execution denied a report that he had accused the National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie of possible responsibility for the leaked video.

    "I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie, and I did not see him taking pictures," prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon said Wednesday.

    "But I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution. They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said.

    The prosecutor added the two officials were openly taking video pictures, which are believed to be those which appeared on Al-Jazeera and Internet within hours of the execution.

    Some of the last words Saddam heard, according to the leaked video, were a chant of "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada," a reference to Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical anti-American Shiite cleric, whose Mahdi Army militia is believed responsible for many of these years' wave of killings that have targeted Sunnis and driven many from their homes.

    The United States launched the Iraqi war and toppled the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003 on the grounds that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and ties with al-Qaeda terror network.

    (Agencies)

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Footage of Saddam execution sparks anger among Iraqis

    BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people pour into former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit from Tuesday morning as unofficial footage of his hanging sparked anger among Iraqis, mostly Sunnis.

Iraqi gov't launches probe into unofficial footage of Saddam execution

    BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi government ordered an inquiry about an unofficial footage of the execution of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, an official close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday.