sadam execution

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraqi officials finalised plans for the execution of Saddam Hussein and said he could be hanged within hours, amid fears of an insurgent backlash once he mounts the gallows.
An Iraqi judge who has been asked to witness the execution, Moneer Haddad, told reporters Friday that he had been put on standby for a hanging that could take place "maybe tonight or tomorrow".
Asked when Saddam would be hanged, Judge Haddad, a member of the panel which confirmed Saddam's execution order, said: "Maybe tonight, or tomorrow. I am the appeal court judge who will be there."
Sami al-Askari, a member of Iraq's main Shiite parliamentary bloc and a consultant to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said: "All documents relating to the implementation of the execution are compiled and ready."
"Saddam has only a very short time ahead of the implementation of the execution. The execution will be either before dawn on Saturday, or immediately after the Eid holiday," Askari told AFP.
Eid al-Adha, the "feast of sacrifice", will begin at the weekend and last until Wednesday night, and Iraqi officials have already said that it would be unlikely that an execution be carried out during a religious holiday.
Baghdad was rocked by explosions and heavy gunfire as night fell, while local television breathlessly bombarded viewers with conflicting reports.
Maliki himself told the families of some of the ousted president's victims that Saddam would be put to death without delay.
"Our respect for human rights means we must implement the execution of Saddam and his aides. Those who reject Saddam's execution are undermining the dignity of the martyrs of Iraq," Maliki said, according to his office.
"After the endorsement of the court ruling, no one can prevent the execution sentence against Saddam. There will be neither a revision nor a delay in the implementation of the execution sentence against Saddam and his aides."
Saddam's defence counsel fed speculation about the execution by announcing that he had been asked to send someone to collect Saddam's belongings from the US base where he is being held, suggesting the hour was almost at hand.
"According to information in our possession, Saddam Hussein will be executed Saturday at dawn," said one of Saddam's lawyers who asked not to be identified, adding: "The gallows is ready."
Lead defence counsel Khalil al-Dulaimi said he had been asked to come and pick up the personal effects of Saddam and his half brother Barzan al-Tikriti who has also been sentenced to hang for the killing of 148 Shiite villagers.
The White House said Saddam was still in US military custody and that his fate was "an issue for the Iraqi government. We are observers to this process."
The head of Iraq's interior ministry command centre, Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, said the country's beleaguered security forces were on high alert ahead of a hanging expected to exacerbate sky-high sectarian tensions.
"Certainly, this is a big event, putting into effect the execution of this serial killer," he said. "We will take measures proportionate to this event. We will put all our forces on the streets so that no lives are jeopardised."
On November 5, when Saddam was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death, protests erupted in some parts of Iraq and authorities declared a three-day curfew to prevent attacks by Sunni insurgents.
Khalaf said such a measure could only be decreed by the prime minister, but Iraqi forces stood ready to act once informed of the date of the execution.
On December 26, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed Saddam's sentence and ordered that he and two former aides be hanged within 30 days.
In the almost four years since a US-led invasion drove Saddam from office, the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation has been engulfed in a rising tide of violence between warring political and sectarian factions.
Iraq's Shiite Arab majority and breakaway Kurds welcomed Saddam's fall, but many members of the Sunni Arab minority flocked to the banner of Islamist or pro-Saddam insurgent groups battling his US-backed successors.
The execution, when it comes, can be expected to further deepen the sectarian divide. Shiite hardliners hope that it will knock the heart out of the insurgency, but other observers fear violent reprisals.