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An Inglorious End

It is the crack of the dawn on the first day of Eid-Ul-Aadha, a very important day on the Islamic calendar, just two days before the festivities of Eid, which symbolises the sacrifice of Prophet Ibrahim to Allah. The event takes place just as Sunni Muslims are preparing to make their sacrificial offering by killing a sheep to celebrate the end of the pilgrimage season.

The date is December 30, 2006. And the venue is a room in ‘Camp Justice’, an Iraqi army base the neighbourhood of northeast Baghdad. It is the same room where many men had been tortured and executed when the condemned man was ruling the country. Paradoxically, the gallows are located in the same town where one of Shia Islam’s holiest shrines stands.

A bound and shackled man dressed in a black coat, dark sweater, black trousers and shoes is brought into the room. He is asked to remove the black hat but allowed to keep the grey scarf on. 

There are very few men in the room in which an eerie spectacle is about to unfold. The man is asked to take a seat and a judge reads out the details of the sentence that has been handed out to him.

"Long live the nation! Down with the criminal invaders! Down with the spies! Down with the occupiers!" shouts the man, thrusting his finger in the air, his body shaking with rage.

One of the Iraqi guards put his face within a few inches of the condemned man’s face to watch the reaction as the death sentence is read. Chewing gum, the guard smiles mockingly, and then laughs.

"The court has decided to sentence Saddam Hussein al-Majid to death by hanging," The sentence is read out.

"Go to hell! You and the court!" shouts the man. "You don't decide anything, you are servants of the occupiers and lackeys! You are puppets!"

"Take him out!" the judge shouts at the end of a declaration convicting Hussein on five of six charges of crimes against humanity.

"Long live the Kurds! Long live the Arabs!" yells the sixty nine year old man.

Minutes later, his hands bound at the back, he is led to the gallows where a hangman’s noose awaits his neck. He refuses to wear a hood on his head, preferring a scarf instead. It is dawn in the Iraqi capital and the 69 year –old-Butcher- of- Baghdad stands at the gallows without blindfold, watching the macabre preparation for his hanging.

He stands still before the noose and prays. The prayers are interrupted by the screaming spectators who have gathered to see him die.  ‘Moqtada, Moqtada’, they chant. Moqtada is the name of a firebrand Shia leader who runs one of Iraq’s most violent religious militias and most of the people in the room belong to the Shia community. It has been a hated name in Saddam’s coterie. The hangman puts the noose around Saddam’s neck and he counters, ‘Do you consider this bravery?’  

A voice in the crowd shouts, ‘Go to Hell’.

Undeterred, he retaliates, ‘The hell that is Iraq?’

The condemned man’s efforts at maintaining a dignified calm at the face of the capital punishment evokes no pity in the hearts of the spectators and they continue jeering. Probably to block their snide remarks, he begins chanting verses from the Koran, ‘I profess that there is no God but God and that Muhammad…..’.

The executioners release the trapdoor and the prayer is cut short. The head lolls to a side in the noose and the neck is snapped by the drop. The crowd cheers, ‘The tyrant has fallen.’ The hanging finished, the show is over for them.

The hanging is significant because the condemned man is the ex-president of Iraq and his name - Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti. 

Not long before the execution, Saddam's lawyers released his last letter to the public. Before dying, the dictator had left a letter for the world:

“To the great nation, to the people of our country, and humanity,” it reads

Many of you have known the writer of this letter to be faithful, honest, caring for others, wise, of sound judgment, just, decisive, careful with the wealth of the people and the state ... and that his heart is big enough to embrace all without discrimination. You have known your brother and leader very well and he never bowed to the despots and, in accordance with the wishes of those who loved him, remained a sword and a banner. This is how you want your brother, son or leader to be ... and those who will lead you (in the future) should have the same qualifications.

Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if He wants, He will send it to heaven with the martyrs, or, He will postpone that ... so let us be patient and depend on Him against the unjust nations. Remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness and brotherly coexistence ... I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave a space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking and keeps one away from balanced thinking and making the right choice.

I also call on you not to hate the peoples of the other countries that attacked us and differentiate between the decision-makers and peoples. Anyone who repents - whether in Iraq or abroad - you must forgive him.

You should know that among the aggressors, there are people who support your struggle against the invaders, and some of them volunteered for the legal defence of prisoners, including Saddam Hussein ... some of these people wept profusely when they said goodbye to me.

Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you, but I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any faithful, honest believer ... God is Great ... God is great ... Long live our nation ... Long live our great struggling people ... Long live Iraq, long live Iraq ... Long live Palestine ... Long live jihad and the mujahedeen (the insurgency).

- Saddam Hussein President and Commander in Chief of the Iraqi Mujahid Armed Forces

Additional clarification note:

I have written this letter because the lawyers told me that the so-called criminal court — established and named by the invaders --will allow the so-called defendants the chance for a last 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. I wanted the people to know this.

The dictator was dead. The man who began his journey from a hovel and reached to the top of his country to rule it for more than 24 years, died like a common criminal.

It was 9 pm in Texas and the US President was sleeping at his ranch even as Saddam’s body dangled at the end of a rope. The man who had been instrumental in bringing the dictator to book was unaware of the inhuman circumstances that enveloped his death.