Yemeni teens die imitating Saddam execution

Sanaa: A Yemeni teenager committed suicide by hanging and another died imitating the execution of Saddam Hussain.

A 20-year-old is under treatment after he fired at himself after watching the execution on TV.

Saddam Hussain Al Jakey, 14, had tied himself up on a tree close to his house in Sanhan district, 10 km east of Sanaa, late last week.

"[The boy], who is in Grade 8, tried to commit suicide twice since the Iraqi President was hanged, but his parents prevented him," said a percon close to the boy's family.

"Last Wednesday [the boy] insisted on staying at home alone while the family went out to spend the Eid holiday, and during this time he hanged himself from the tree next to the house. The family came back to find him dead," he said.

The child was affected by Saddam Hussain's execution shown on television, he said.

Ayman Mansour Al Razmi, 13, also hanged himself imitating Saddam's death in front of his friends at Al Naqilain village in Al Syani district, Ibb province, 200km south of the capital.

"Ayman was enacting before his friends ... the hanging of Saddam because he was the only one who watched it on television," said a person close to the family.

"After he tied a rope around his neck and the rope was tied to a tree, he stood on a [pile] of stones and when the stones fell from under his feet he was left hanging.

His friends stood around watching him and they did nothing to rescue him until he was dead. They said they thought he was acting," he added.

Twenty-year-old Ahmad Faisal Mohammad from the southern province of Al Dhale'e tried to kill himself by firing a Kalashnikov rifle at his neck immediately after watching the hanging on TV. He was admitted to a hospital where he is under intensive care, according to relatives.

A man from the same province divorced his wife after she said, "Saddam deserved to hang", the same person said.