On this day 10 years ago, Saddam Hussein was led to the gallows and hanged to death for crimes against humanity during his reign as dictator of Iraq. Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist from 1979 until he was toppled by a US invasion in April 2003. He was discovered by US special forces in hiding eight months later and tried by an Iraqi special tribunal. His death by capital punishment came after the tribunal found him guilty of having ordered the murder of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites in a 1982 massacre. Although official video only showed the moments before the actual hanging and had sound omitted, amateur footage shot on a mobile phone and uploaded to YouTube showed the hanging from start to finish, with Iraqis jeering Saddam and subsequently celebrating as he fell through the gallows' trapdoor. International human rights groups had already voiced criticism of Saddam's trial, with Human Rights Watch calling it "a significant step away from the rule of law in Iraq" and Amnesty International saying the trial had been "unfair". The leaked amateur footage of the execution added fuel to the fire. Critics said the scene resembled a celebration of bloodlust, and the US president at the...
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