Senior Iraqi officials confirmed early Saturday that former president Saddam Hussein and two former allies were hanged at the dawn.
Foreign Ministry official Mariam al-Rayis, who attended the execution, told the state television that Saddam and his two co-accused(1) -- his half brother and intelligence chief Barzan Hassan al-Tikriti and revolutionary court judge Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, were hanged one after the other.
"It was between 5.30 am (0230 GMT) and 6.30 am (0330 GMT)" and "the whole thing was filmed," said the official.
"Saddam was hanged first, then Barzan, then Bandar," Rayis added.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi also told the BBC on Saturday that Saddam Hussein has been executed.
"I believe so, yes. He has been executed. It has been officially announced that he has been executed," Abbawi said in a phone interview with BBC News 24.
Iraqi official television station Al-Iraqiya announced that "criminal Saddam was hanged to death."
U.S. President George W. Bush hailed(2) the execution of the toppled(3) Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as "an important milestone" on the road to building an Iraqi democracy(4).
"It is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally(5) in the war on terror," Bush said in a statement issued just about one hour after Saddam was hanged in Baghdad, Iraq.
The execution took place after Saddam, who was born on April 28, 1937, and was deposed(6) by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was handed over to the Iraqi authorities from a U.S. camp near Baghdad international airport where he had been held.
On Nov. 5, a panel of five Iraqi judges sentenced Saddam and his two co-accused to death by hanging for killing of 148 people in Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad.
On Dec. 3, the defense lawyers of Saddam officially appealed(7) to the higher court against the death penalty(8) imposed on Saddam and another two codefendants.
However, the Iraqi appellate(9) court chief announced on Tuesday that the court had upheld the death sentence for Saddam Hussein.
