After his captors brought Saddam into the execution chamber, his hands - which were tied in front of him ¡ª were untied, then tied in the back, Haddad told the BBC.

"They put his feet in shackles and he was taken upstairs to the gallows," Haddad said. "He was reciting, as it was his custom, 'God is great' and also some political slogans like 'Down with the Americans!' and 'Down with the invaders!'

"He said we are going to Heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians."

A silent, minute-long video that aired on Iraqi television showed Saddam on the scaffold. He seemed to have little to say, and his eyes appeared lost in a 1,000-yard stare.

Four or five burly men guided him gently but firmly toward a red metal railing marking the trap door. A thick rope hung like a sinister vine from the low ceiling. An unseen photographer's flash created fleeting stark shadows.

With a blank expression, Saddam refused a black hood - but he did so with a shake of his head that seemed more distracted than defiant.

Then he appeared to agree to let one of his executioners tie a black scarf around his neck ¡ª presumably to prevent injuries that might disfigure his corpse.

In the televised video, Saddam stood stoically as the noose was slipped over his head. Then the Iraqi TV footage ended.

But the camera phone video, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera and aired in full on Arabic-language Web sites, continued.

One of the official witnesses to the execution called out praise for Dawa Party founder and Shiite cleric Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr, who was executed along with his sister by Saddam in 1980. The Islamic party has been locked in a fierce decades-old battle with Saddam's now outlawed secular Baath party. Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful and radical Shiite cleric in Iraq, is a distant relative of the Dawa founder.

Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows, and said they were not showing their manhood.

Then Saddam began reciting the "Shahada," a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet.

"Saddam did so but with sarcasm," Haddad said.

Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.

The floor dropped out of the gallows, there was a crash and the chamber erupted in shouting.

"The tyrant has fallen," someone called. The video showed a close-up of Saddam's face as he swung from the rope.

Then came another voice: "Let him swing for three minutes."

Asked if Saddam suffered, Haddad told the BBC: "He was killed instantly, I witnessed the impact of the rope around his neck and it was a horrible sight."

Iraqi television broadcasts included a shaky image of the aftermath: a shot of what appeared to be Saddam's corpse, laid out on a hospital gurney, his head wrenched grotesquely to the right. His neck appeared to be bruised.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were originally scheduled to be hanged along with their former leader.

Iraqi officials, though, decided to reserve the occasion for Saddam alone.

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