From Sky News:

Angry, shaking and defiant, Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death this morning by hanging for ordering the massacre of Iraqi civilians.

"Allahu Akbar!" (God is Greatest) and "Long live the nation!", he shouted, pointing defiantly at the judge as the verdict was delivered. Looking away in disgust, and then staring angrily back at the judge he continued to shout "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"

He had refused to stand for the verdict and had to be lifted to his feet by two court bailiffs.

"Make him stand," the judge ordered as the former president stayed seated.

He then stood in silence and waited for his fate to be announced to the world.

Saddam was convicted of ordering the deaths of 148 Shia men and teenage boys in the town of Dujail in 1982.

The killings followed a failed assassination attempt against him and were intended to act as a grim warning to others not to oppose him.

Saddam was on trial with seven co-accused:

• Awad Hamed al Bander, former chief judge in Saddam's Revolutionary Court, has been sentenced to hang

• Saddam's half-brother Barzan al Tikriti, head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence service, was sentenced to hang

• Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison

• Three Ba'ath party officials were sentenced to 15 years in prison

• Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given15 years

• Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years

• Ali Dayih Ali, former Ba'ath official, given 15 years

• Mohammed Azawi Ali, a Ba'ath party official in Dujail, was cleared.

Saddam is in the middle of a second crimes against humanity trial and the appeal against the Dujail death sentence will start on Monday, taking two months.

He had wanted to face a firing squad - that request was refused.
Celebratory gunfire echoed across Baghdad while fighting broke out in the north of the city.

Saddam's lawyer said the former president urged Iraqis "not to take revenge" on the US coalition and to "unify in the face of sectarian strike".

Sporadic violence has been reported in other parts of the country.
Amnesty International described the trial as a "shabby affair marred by serious flaws".

Security was stepped up in the capital in anticipation of a violent reaction to the verdict. Sunni supporters predicted a "firestorm" of violence.

Saddam, who was captured by US forces in December 2003, is still seen as the figurehead of many of the insurgent Sunni groups conducting a campaign of terror against Coalition troops and Iraqi civilians.

Defence minister Abdul Qader al Obeidi cancelled all army leave and recalled security forces already on holiday.

The trial is the first that Saddam has faced in the wake of his downfall.
It has been punctuated by walkouts, boycotts, hunger-strikes by Saddam and his co-defendants, the murder of three lawyers and the sacking of the original trial judge, who announced in court that he did not believe Saddam was a dictator.

It is possible the former Iraqi president's other trials for genocide and war crimes could now be brought forward.

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