Baghdad: A senior Iraqi court official who was present at Saddam Hussein's execution saw two men holding mobile phone cameras when the former dictator was on the gallows.
Prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon nearly halted the execution when supporters of a radical Shi'ite cleric and militia leader taunted Saddam.
Faroon, who is heard appealing for order on explicit Internet video of Saturday' s hanging, said on Wednesday he threatened to leave if the jeering did not stop—and that would have halted the execution as a prosecution observer must be present by law.
''I threatened to leave,'' Faroon said. ''They knew that if I left, the execution could not go ahead.''
Many in Saddam's Sunni minority, and moderate Shi'ites and Kurds, have been angered and embarrassed by the video. In it, observers chant “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada!” for Shi'ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. Saddam by contrast looks dignified on the gallows and replies: ''Is this what you call manhood?''
Camera phones smuggled in
As the Iraqi government mounted an investigation into how officials smuggled in mobile phone cameras, he also challenged the accounts of the justice minister and an adviser to the prime minister who said the film was shot by a guard—Faroon said one of two people taking video was a senior government official.
''Two officials were holding mobile phone cameras,'' said Faroon, who was a deputy prosecutor in the case for which Saddam was hanged and is the chief prosecutor in a second trial that will continue against his aides for genocide against the Kurds.
''One of them I know. He's a high-ranking government official,'' Faroon said, declining to name the man. ''The other I also know by sight, though not his name. He is also senior. ''I don't know how they got their mobiles in because the Americans took all our phones, even mine which has no camera.''
Faroon said he was the only prosecutor from Saddam's trial for crimes against humanity against the people of the Shi'ite town of Dujail who was present in Baghdad. The Penal Code stipulates that one prosecutor must be present at any execution.
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