January 1, 2007

Occupied Baghdad - In the middle of the night, hours after Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki signed the death warrant on Friday evening, Saddam Hussain was moved from US custody at Camp Cropper, near Baghdad airport, and handed to the Iraqi authorities.

They put him in a cell inside the two-storey concrete building in the Khadimiya district. Saddam rejected an offer of dinner, a cooked chicken, and asked only for a copy of the Quran.

By 1am, all he wanted to do was sleep. But his guards, all members of the dominant Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) party, had other ideas.

One in particular, nicknamed Ali the Butcher, intended to make a hell of Saddam's last night on earth.

"They were making jokes about Saddam," another guard who spoke to those on duty said.

"Ali the Butcher had the rope they would hang him with, and he was telling Saddam 'It's waiting for you, it's waiting for you'."

"The guards were dancing in front of him. When Saddam tried to sleep, they were going in, every 30 minutes. They said, 'We didn't let him sleep. We destroyed his personality'."

A little after 5am, a number of officials arrived at the jail. Saddam declined breakfast. He asked a guard for a cigarette, but was refused. Then, with his hands tied in front of him, he was led towards the execution cell.

In the small hall outside, he sat as a judge read the details of the death sentence.

There was nothing he wanted to say, he told the judge. Then he was led, shuffling, into the execution chamber and passed to the four executioners.