U.S.-backed Iraqi television station Al Hurra said Saddam Hussein had been executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday.
Earlier it was reported that the official witnesses to the ex-president's execution gathered in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging. A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to interfere in another country's judicial process. The ruling can be appealed, but it was issued within an hour of the time Iraqi officials said they expected the execution to be carried out.
Also hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.
The time of the executions was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said one Iraqi official.
Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said that he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order. "All the measures have been done," Haddad said. "There is no reason for delays."
Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on "everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution." The governments of Yemen and Libya made 90th minute appeals that Saddam's life be spared.
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal wrote to the U.S. and Iraqi presidents, warning in his letter to George W. Bush that Saddam's execution would "increase the sectarian violence" in Iraq, according to the official Yemeni news agency Saba. On his part, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi made an indirect appeal to save Saddam, telling Al-Jazeera television that his trial was illegal and that he should be retried by an international court.
Earlier it was reported that the official witnesses to the ex-president's execution gathered in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone in final preparation for his hanging. A U.S. judge on Friday refused to stop Saddam's execution, rejecting a last-minute court challenge. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to interfere in another country's judicial process. The ruling can be appealed, but it was issued within an hour of the time Iraqi officials said they expected the execution to be carried out.
Also hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.
The time of the executions was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said one Iraqi official.
Munir Haddad, a judge on the appeals court that upheld Saddam's death sentence, said that he was ready to attend the hanging and that all the paperwork was in order. "All the measures have been done," Haddad said. "There is no reason for delays."
Saddam's lawyers issued a statement Friday calling on "everybody to do everything to stop this unfair execution." The governments of Yemen and Libya made 90th minute appeals that Saddam's life be spared.
Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal wrote to the U.S. and Iraqi presidents, warning in his letter to George W. Bush that Saddam's execution would "increase the sectarian violence" in Iraq, according to the official Yemeni news agency Saba. On his part, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi made an indirect appeal to save Saddam, telling Al-Jazeera television that his trial was illegal and that he should be retried by an international court.
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