5 Minute Guide: Saddam on trial

What happened?

"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!" US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer told the world on 14 December 2003.

Mr Bremer was, of course, referring to a bearded and haggard-looking Saddam Hussein, captured at an underground hideout on a farm near his hometown Tikrit, Iraq.

George Bush later said Saddam would face "the justice he denied to millions."

The former Iraqi leader faced charges of genocide against Kurds in northern Iraq, and crimes against humanity for the deaths of 148 men and boys in Dujail, a Shia town 40 miles north of Baghdad.

After being held in custody at a US air base, Saddam went to court in Baghdad - a prolonged procedure beset with adjournments, murdered lawyers and allegations of illegitimacy.

The trials took place at Iraq's Special Tribunal and, in contrast to most international tribunals, he was tried by his own countrymen.

"I am Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq," replied the former leader when asked to confirm his identity. He added: "This is all theatre. The real criminal is Bush."

On 5 November 2006, Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging for the Dujail killings, a revenge attack for an assassination attempt in 1982.

He appealed the conviction but it was upheld by the Iraq Appeals Court.

Under Iraqi law he was to be executed within 30 days. It was thought expedient to carry it out before the start of the Muslim festival, Eid-al-Adha.

Mobile phone footage of his execution revealed he was taunted with the name of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr - one of Saddam's enemies - as he went to the gallows.

His death with greeted with celebration in Shia and Kurdish strongholds but with anger among Saddam's native Sunnis, highlighting the extent of the sectarian divide splitting the country.

Why did this happen?

The trial of Saddam was supposed to be a symbolic representation of a new era of democracy in Iraq.

The US, Saddam's opponents and those within the country who had suffered at his hands, were keen to see the former leader put in the dock over the atrocities he carried out.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki described Saddam as a dictator who did not even deserve a trial - but to have killed him without judicial procedure may have sparked even greater outrage.

What happens next?

The reaction to Saddam's death was mixed. There was Shia and Kurdish support, but anger among some Sunnis.

Tony Blair once said Saddam's execution could be a moment for Iraq's factions to "reach out and reconcile", but predictions of harmony seemed misplaced by December 2006.

Perhaps more accurately, one of Saddam's defence lawyers described his execution as opening up the "doors of hell" - referring to the already spiralling sectarian violence.

When hearing he was to be hanged, Saddam shouted in court "down with the foreign invaders."

It is feared his public and undignified death will not only create a more divided Iraq, but one increasingly intolerant of its occupying forces.

The key players

Saddam Hussein
Saddam gained power in Iraq in 1979, soon after he led his country into a bitter war with Iran.

He had the tacit support of the West in the 1980s, especially when he was fighting a potential Islamic insurgency in neighbouring Iran.

However, his invasion of Kuwait antagonised the west and throughout the 1990s he became public enemy number one.

Although the US had tried to link his regime with al-Qaida, the two ideologies are widely acknowledged to be incompatible.

Saddam was born in 1937 to a poor Sunni family, and went on to join the Baath Socialist Party, climbing quickly to the top.

After a failed assassination attempt on the Iraqi prime minister in 1959, Saddam spent time in exile in both Syria and Eygpt.

But he returned to Iraq in 1963; after the Baath party completed a coup he was initially dumped in jail but by the late '60s had become vice-president of Iraq, taking the top job a decade later.

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