Region | Iraq
Internet images fuel anger among supporters
Saddam Hussain was buried in a secret funeral Sunday amid growing anger among his supporters as images showing his executioners taunting him and the moment of his death were published on the internet.
- The Telegraph Group
- Published: 00:00 January 2, 2007
- A supporter prays at the grave of Saddam Hussain in Awja, 130 km north of Baghdad.
- Image Credit: AP
Baghdad: Saddam Hussain was buried in a secret funeral Sunday amid growing anger among his supporters as images showing his executioners taunting him and the moment of his death were published on the internet.
In accordance with Muslim tradition, Saddam was buried less than 24 hours after he was hanged in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
His body was flown from the capital by American military helicopter to his home village of Awja, north of Baghdad, and washed and dressed in an unstitched white cloth before prayers in a grand mosque built by his regime in the nearby regional capital, Tikrit.
He was then buried in a mosque hall in Awja in the presence of a small group of local officials and tribesmen who were prominent in his rise to power. His closest relatives are all living in exile. Fears grew that the Sunni stronghold, where Saddam's two sons, Uday and Qusay, are also buried, could become a pilgrimage site for supporters of Saddam and his family, seen as martyrs.
Images that appeared on the internet fuelled anger among hardline Sunnis that their former leader had been mistreated. The pictures, shot on mobile phones, showed Shiite officials attending the funeral taunting the ex-dictator.
Thousands of angry supporters of Saddam flocked to Awja to lay flowers and pictures of the tyrant near his brick-and-mud tomb.
Men came to pay their respects by the mound of fresh clay, which had a gravestone at its head and foot and a large photograph, propped on a chair, of a younger, smiling Saddam wearing his trademark black fedora hat.
Minted tea and bitter coffee was served in an adjacent room, where Saddam was referred to by many as a martyr against the American occupation. Ali Al Nida, the chief of Saddam's Al Bu Nasir tribe, oversaw the 3am burial, attended by a few tribal leaders and young relatives, in the octagonal domed building that Saddam had built in the 1980s for religious festivals.
Mousa Faraj, a relative of Saddam, said that secrecy prevented many more outsiders from attending the burial. In solemn rows the senior clansmen lined up in front of the body, which was draped with an Iraqi flag, while an imam said prayers. After the elders bowed to the coffin, the formalities were completed. Bricks built around the coffin were fixed in place with shovels of mud and buckets of water. Finally cement sealed the grave in a marble floor. An Iraq flag was then draped over the burial mound.
A witness said junior members of the family, including Saddam's siblings, nephews and nieces, wept and knelt before the large photograph.
Despite a military cordon by Iraqi security forces on Awja and the regional capital Tikrit, thousands of sympathisers marched to condemn his death.
"I condemn the way he was executed and I consider it a crime," said a distant relative, Salam Hassan Al Nasseri.
There had been speculation that the government might bury Saddam's body in a secret grave for fear the site could become a focal point for rebels. But a spokesman said the government was not worried that the grave may turn into a place of pilgrimage.
Share this article
Related Articles
-
Saddam wrote poetry and fed birds
Saddam wrote poetry and fed birds
-
Channel shut for 'fuelling sectarianism'
Another TV channel shut down for 'inciting sectarianism'
-
Iraqis ponder their violent history after execution
Iraqis ponder their violent history after execution
-
$title
-
'Fallen tyrant' taunted, footage shows
Video shows Saddam was taunted minutes before and during execution
-
$title
-
Saddam had exchange with witnesses
Saddam had exchange with witnesses
-
$title
-
Saddam Hussain executed
Saddam Hussain executed
Popular in News
News Editor's choice
-
Anti-terror force enlisted for Haj
Aerial surveillance to complement normal security operations
-
English to stay as medium of instruction
Lack of funding of scientific research in Arab world criticised
-
Global Village opens with a revamped layout
Four gates will have themes making it easier to find specific pavilions
