--- title: How Saddam Hussein died url: https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/ description: Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq from 1979 until the US-led invasion of 2003, was captured on 13 December 2003, sentenced to death on 5 November 2006 by… section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a contemporary investigator's evidence wall of printed social-media posts, network diagrams and a pinned world map, in the same dossier style as the rest of the archive.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-contemporary-evidence-wall.jpg) [Regimes](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/) / [How they died](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/) # How Saddam Hussein died At a glance The former Iraqi president was captured by US forces in December 2003, convicted by an Iraqi tribunal of crimes against humanity over the 1982 Dujail killings, and hanged in Baghdad on 30 December 2006; the trial, the timing and the leaked recording of the hanging are all disputed. - **Leader:** Saddam Hussein - **Died:** 30 December 2006 - **Place:** Baghdad, Iraq - **Cause:** Hanged after a death sentence from the Iraqi High Tribunal - **Regime:** Iraq under Saddam Hussein On this page - [The final days](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#the-final-days) - [The death](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#the-death) - [What happened to the body](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#what-happened-to-the-body) - [How the death was announced and used](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#how-the-death-was-announced-and-used) - [Timeline](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#timeline) - [Same-standard note](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#same-standard-note) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/endings/saddam-hussein/#sources) **In one line:** Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq from 1979 until the US-led invasion of 2003, was captured on 13 December 2003, sentenced to death on 5 November 2006 by the Iraqi High Tribunal for crimes against humanity in the town of Dujail, and hanged in Baghdad on 30 December 2006, on the first day of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha for Sunnis and many other Muslims. ## The final days After the fall of Baghdad in April 2003 Saddam Hussein went into hiding. On 14 December 2003 the head of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer, opened a press conference in Baghdad with the words "We got him!" and said that Saddam Hussein "was captured Saturday, December 13 at about 8:30 PM local in a cellar in the town of ad-Duar", about 15 kilometres south of Tikrit. "The tyrant is a prisoner," he said. At the same briefing Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said the arrest, by the US 4th Infantry Division and special forces, had involved "not a single shot", and gave the time as about 8:00 pm. The briefing showed video of the hole where he was found and of his medical examination, and photographs of him before and after he was shaved; some in the audience shouted "Death to Saddam". ![Close-up of Saddam Hussein with long unkempt hair and a grey beard, with a small mark above the left eyebrow, against a white tiled wall](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/saddam-hussein-1.jpg) Saddam Hussein after his capture on 13 December 2003, in a US Department of Defense photograph dated 14 December 2003. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saddamcapture.jpg): US Department of Defense photograph (DoD Visual Information, image DD-SD-05-01884), 14 December 2003; photographer not named on the Commons file page, Public domain (work of the US federal government; Commons tag public domain). ![Close-up of Saddam Hussein clean-shaven apart from a grey moustache, with short dark hair, in a blue jacket against a white tiled wall](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/saddam-hussein-2.jpg) The same man after his beard was shaved, in a US Department of Defense photograph of 14 December 2003. The US military showed pictures of him before and after shaving at the press briefing announcing his capture. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saddam_Hussein_captured_%26_shaven_DD-SD-05-01885.jpg): US Department of Defense photograph (DoD Visual Information, image DD-SD-05-01885), 14 December 2003, Public domain (work of the US federal government; Commons tag public domain). The Iraqi Special Tribunal, later renamed the Iraqi High Tribunal, had been created in 2003 by a Coalition Provisional Authority order. Saddam Hussein was held by US forces at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and was arraigned before the tribunal on 1 July 2004. His first trial, which began on 19 October 2005, concerned Dujail. On 8 July 1982 there had been an assassination attempt on him during a visit to the town. The prosecution said that nearly 800 residents were detained in retaliation. Human Rights Watch records that 148 men were sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court in 1984 after a summary trial and that most were executed in 1985. Three defence lawyers were killed during the trial. The first presiding judge, Rizgar Amin, resigned in January 2006 after criticism of his handling of the court, and Rauf Abdel Rahman replaced him. On 5 November 2006 the tribunal convicted Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging, with his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and the former chief judge of the Revolutionary Court, Awad al-Bandar. The former vice-president Taha Yassin Ramadan received life imprisonment. On 26 December the appeals chamber confirmed the sentence. ## The death The tribunal's statute required execution within 30 days of the appeal ruling. Saddam Hussein was taken to a former military intelligence building in Baghdad that his own security services had used for executions, and the Iraqi officials who were to attend were flown there by US helicopter. The prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon told Al Jazeera that 14 Iraqi officials, including two prosecutors, and three hangmen were present. He was hanged shortly before dawn on 30 December; reports give the time as about 06:00. Iraqi state television showed the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, signing the death warrant. The government's own video, shown on Iraqi television, was silent and ended before the drop. A recording made on a mobile phone by someone in the room was on the internet within hours. On it, onlookers shout the name of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and praise a relative of his, Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, whom Saddam Hussein's government had executed in 1980. The recording as transcribed by Radio Free Europe has Saddam Hussein replying "Do you consider this bravery?", one voice shouting "To hell", another pleading "Please do not. The man is being executed," and Saddam Hussein beginning the Muslim declaration of faith as the trapdoor opens. The recording's origin is disputed. A US newspaper first reported that al-Faroon had named the national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, as one of two officials who filmed it. Al-Faroon then said: "I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie." He said two government officials had openly filmed the hanging with mobile phones. Maliki ordered an investigation. On 3 January 2007 an official said a guard suspected of recording the video had been arrested, while an adviser to Maliki told the Associated Press that the person who made the video had been arrested and was "an official who supervised the execution", and Rubaie later told NBC News that three people had been arrested. ## What happened to the body The body was handed to the governor of Salaheddin province and the leader of the Albu Nasir tribe, and was transported by US forces to Tikrit. It was buried in Awja, his home village, in the family plot where his sons Uday and Qusay lay. About 100 people, including the governor, tribal leaders and relatives, attended before dawn on 31 December. A cousin, Yousif Ali Hussein, said the governor and the coalition forces had made it a condition that the burial be overnight. An adviser to Maliki had said earlier that the government wanted a secret burial place, to prevent the site becoming a place of pilgrimage for rebels (Al Jazeera). Radio Free Europe reported that hundreds of people visited the grave later that day. ![Illustration: a shortwave radio transmitter hall with antenna towers, frequency charts and broadcast logs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/graphics/shortwave-hall.jpg) Illustration, not an archive object ## How the death was announced and used The Iraqi government announced the execution through state television. The channels Alhurra and Al Arabiya reported it as well, Al Arabiya citing Saddam Hussein's lawyer, and state television's ticker read "Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history". Maliki said the execution "puts an end to all the pathetic gambles on a return to dictatorship". President George W. Bush said that Saddam Hussein "was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime". ![Saddam Hussein in a dark suit and white shirt seated behind a wooden rail, facing a judge in a robe who is seen from behind with one hand raised](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/images/endings/saddam-hussein-3.jpg) Saddam Hussein before an Iraqi judge in Baghdad on 1 July 2004, when he was informed of the charges being investigated and of his legal rights, in a US Air Force photograph. [Source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SaddamHussein_in_court_2004July01_DF-SD-05-03944.jpg): Photograph by Staff Sergeant D. Myles Cullen, US Air Force (DoD Visual Information, image DF-SD-05-03944), 1 July 2004, Public domain (work of the US federal government; Commons tag public domain). Human Rights Watch had reported in November 2006, after ten months of monitoring, that the trial did not meet fair-trial standards. It cited failures to disclose evidence, limits on questioning witnesses, the government's interference with the tribunal's independence and the presiding judge's bias. After the execution it said the trial had been "deeply flawed", that the appeal could not have reviewed a 300-page judgment in under three weeks, and that it opposed the death penalty in all cases, while recording that Saddam Hussein had been responsible for "massive human rights violations". It also said the execution jeopardised the continuing Anfal trial over the 1988 killings of Kurds. The timing was contested. Eid al-Adha began on 30 December for Sunnis in Iraq and in Saudi Arabia, and reports at the time said Shia Muslims there and in Iran began it a day later. Article 290 of the Iraqi Criminal Procedure Code says that "the death penalty cannot be carried out on official holidays and special festivals connected with the religion of the condemned person". Saudi Arabia said Islamic leaders should "show respect for this blessed occasion". Rubaie confirmed that the US had told the government to be careful with its documentation, and CBS News, citing Reuters, reported that the US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had insisted that Maliki provide certain documents, including a signature from Iraq's president. The US denied any part in the timing. Opponents and supporters used the recording differently. Radio Free Europe wrote that the chants gave the hanging "the air of an act of personal revenge carried out by the Shi'ite religious parties", and many Sunnis blamed Shia leaders for it. Reports differ on the scale of protest: Al Jazeera described small demonstrations in Saddam Hussein's home town and the Sunni west, while CBS reported anger spreading in many Sunni areas, including a crowd in Samarra with a mock coffin. Shia celebrations in Baghdad's Sadr City were described as brief. The government said it was investigating the filming. ## Timeline - 8 July 1982: Assassination attempt in Dujail. - April 2003: Baghdad falls. - 13 December 2003: Captured near ad-Dawr. - 1 July 2004: Arraigned before the Iraqi Special Tribunal. - 19 October 2005: Dujail trial opens. - 5 November 2006: Verdict and death sentence. - 26 December 2006: Appeals chamber confirms the sentence. - 30 December 2006: Hanged in Baghdad; the mobile-phone recording appears online. - 31 December 2006: Buried at Awja. - 3 January 2007: A guard is reported arrested over the recording. ## Same-standard note This page uses the project's working definitions: it records who did what, when and where, and gives each side's account in its own words. Saddam Hussein was captured by a foreign army, tried by an Iraqi court that a foreign power had helped create and executed by an Iraqi government, and the recording shows that those present expressed their own hostility. That differs from leaders who were killed without any trial, from leaders who were tried and shot within three days of falling from power, and from leaders who died in office or in bed. The page does not treat those cases as equivalent, and it does not argue the verdict. ## Sources - Transcript of Ambassador Bremer's remarks, 14 December 2003, Coalition Provisional Authority archive: https://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cpa-iraq/transcripts/20031214_Dec14_Saddam_Capture.htm - US Department of Defense, Ambassador Bremer and Lieutenant General Sanchez briefing from Baghdad, 14 December 2003: https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/12/mil-031214-dod01.htm - Human Rights Watch, "Judging Dujail: The First Trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal", November 2006: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/iraq1106/2.htm - Human Rights Watch, "Iraq: Saddam Hussein Put to Death", 29 December 2006: https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/12/29/iraq-saddam-hussein-put-death - Human Rights Watch, "Iraq: Reverse Decision to Execute Saddam", 25 December 2006: https://www.hrw.org/news/2006/12/25/iraq-reverse-decision-execute-saddam - Al Jazeera, "Timeline: Saddam's Dujail trial", 5 November 2006: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/11/5/timeline-saddams-dujail-trial - Al Jazeera, "Saddam's body in Tikrit for burial", 30 December 2006: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/12/30/saddams-body-in-tikrit-for-burial - Daily News Egypt (Associated Press), "Man who filmed Saddam on mobile phone arrested", 3 January 2007: https://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2007/01/03/man-who-filmed-saddam-on-mobile-phone-arrested/ - Al Jazeera, "Guard arrested over Saddam video", 3 January 2007: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2007/1/3/guard-arrested-over-saddam-video - Al Jazeera, "Saddam buried in Awja", 31 December 2006: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2006/12/31/saddam-buried-in-awja - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Iraq: Unauthorized Execution Video Raises Fears Of Sectarian Backlash", 2 January 2007: https://www.rferl.org/a/1073775.html - Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Hundreds Visit Hussein's Gravesite After Overnight Burial", 31 December 2006: https://www.rferl.org/a/1073758.html - CNN, "Hussein buried in same cemetery as sons", 31 December 2006: https://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/30/hussein.funeral/index.html - CBS News, "Report: U.S. Tried To Delay Saddam Hanging": https://cbsnews.com/news/report-us-tried-to-delay-saddam-hanging - Arab Media & Society, "Death by Video Phone: Coverage of Saddam Hussein's Execution": https://arabmediasociety.com/death-by-video-phone-coverage-of-saddam-husseins-execution/ - President Bush's statement on the execution of Saddam Hussein, 29 December 2006: https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/12/20061229-15.html - Iraqi Criminal Procedure Code No. 23 of 1971, as amended to 2010, Article 290: https://cjad.nottingham.ac.uk/documents/implementations/pdf/Iraq-Criminal_Procedure_Code_amend_2010_EN.pdf