TASEK PAUH blogspot

The person believed to have recorded Saddam Hussein's execution on a mobile phone has been arrested.

An adviser to Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, did not identify the person. But he said it was "an official who supervised the execution" and who is "now under investigation".

Iraqi state television aired an official video of the hanging, which had no audio and never showed Saddam's actual death.

But the cell phone video showed the deposed leader being taunted in his final moments, with witnesses shouting "go to hell" before he dropped through the gallows floor.

The scene aired on Al Jazeera television was posted on the internet, prompting a worldwide outcry and protests.

Leaked video

Al-Maliki ordered his interior ministry to investigate who made the video and how it reached television and websites for public viewing.

An earlier US newspaper report said that Munqith al-Faroon, an Iraqi prosecutor that was present at the execution, identified the culprit.

"One of two men seen holding a cell phone camera aloft to make a video of Mr. Hussein's last moments ... was Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Mr. Maliki's national security adviser," he was alleged as saying.

On Wednesday however, al-Faroon denied reports that he had accused the country's national security adviser of the responsibility for the leaked video.

"I am not accusing Mowaffak al-Rubaie [the national security adviser], and I did not see him taking pictures," he said.

"I saw two of the government officials who were ... present during the execution taking all the video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the execution.

"They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," al-Faroon said.

Smuggled

The prosecutor said the two officials were openly taking video pictures, which are believed to be those which appeared within hours of Saddam's execution shortly before dawn on Saturday.

Al-Faroon said there were 14 Iraqi officials, including himself and another prosecutor, as well as three hangmen present for the execution.

All the officials were flown by US helicopter to the former military intelligence facility where Saddam was put to death in an execution chamber used by his own security men for years.

Labels: Berita, Iraq, Luar Negeri, Saddam