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Quote:"Giovanni di Stefano, one of Hussein's defense attorneys, told CNN the U.S. military officially informed him that the former Iraqi dictator has been transferred to Iraqi authorities for his execution and that a "credible source" had told him Hussein will be executed "very shortly -- in the next couple of hours." CNN Report Sources: Hussein execution nears POSTED: 3:05 p.m. EST, December 29, 2006 Story Highlights: • NEW: Iraqi lawmaker said he saw judge, cleric, and physician at gallows • NEW: Reports conflict over whether Hussein is in U.S. or Iraqi custody • Hussein's lawyers say U.S. officials have canceled...

(KDKA) PITTSBURGH -- A former Iraqi man now living in Pittsburgh speaks out as officials in his home country prepare to execute Saddam Hussein. Abe Alkhuzai was one of thousands who were tortured and beaten by Saddam's regime. Now, Alkhuzai says he just can't believe this is happening. But he says what he endured under Saddam's regime continues to haunt him everyday. Alkhuzai is thrilled to hear Saddam Hussein could be hanged even sooner than expected. "In 36 hours, Saddam Hussein is going to get killed," he said. "I think he deserves his justice." Video smuggled into the U.S. shows...

U.S. preparing for Saddam's execution By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer 3 minutes ago As Saddam Hussein's lawyer made a last-ditch effort to impede his execution Thursday, the White House was preparing for the ousted dictator to be hanged as early as this weekend, a senior administration official said. The timetable was based on information that U.S. officials in Baghdad received from the Iraqi government. But, there were differing accounts. Iraq's deputy justice minister, Bosho Ibrahim, said Saddam shouldn't be hanged for another few weeks. "The law does not say within 30 days, it says after the lapse of 30...

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called on Iraqi authorities to act with restraint in regards to the implementation of ousted tyrant Saddam Hussein's death sentence. "There were a number of concerns as to the fairness of the original trial, and there needs to be assurance that these issues have been comprehensively addressed. I call therefore on the Iraqi authorities not to act precipitately," Arbour said. (Reuters)

The Iraqi government is "anxious to get Saddam's execution done" and that it is likely to be carried out before the New Year — perhaps even within the next 24 hours, a U.S. military official told FOX News.

Hundreds of Iraqis have offered to act as hangman in the execution of Saddam Hussein, according to senior officials in the Baghdad Government. Some requests have been e-mailed to the office of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, from around the world. Mr al-Maliki has also been directly petitioned by government officials who want to place the noose around Saddam’s neck. Many ordinary Justice Ministry employees are too terrified to carry out an execution, fearing reprisals from the dead man’s family. Those who do volunteer to act as the executioner may well have lost a relative to violence in the...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein called on Iraqis not to hate the U.S.-led forces that invaded Iraq in 2003 in a farewell letter posted on a Web site Wednesday, a day after an appeals court upheld the former dictator's death sentence and ordered him to be hanged within one month. One of Saddam's attorneys, Issam Ghazzawi, confirmed to The Associated Press in Jordan that the letter was authentic, saying it was written by Saddam on Nov. 5 — the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal for ordering the killings of scores of Shiite Muslims in the city of...

NEW YORK (AFP) - Human Rights Watch urged the Iraqi government not to execute Saddam Hussein, describing the trial that convicted the former president for crimes against humanity as "deeply flawed." "Imposing the death penalty, indefensible in any case, is especially wrong after such unfair proceedings," said Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's international justice programme. "That a judicial decision was first announced by Iraq's national security adviser underlines the political interference that marred Saddam Hussein's trial," he added. Saddam was sentenced to death in November after a trial lasting more than a year for ordering the deaths of...

On December 26, 1862, thirty-eight Indians were hanged in a mass execution in downtown Mankato. They were executed for their parts in the Sioux Uprising which took place in August of that year. The Sioux Uprising was a short-lived and bloody conflict that took the lives of many settlers and Indians in the Minnesota River Valley in southern Minnesota. The Sioux Uprising eventually touched off other conflicts between whites and Indians that spread across the Great Plains 'til 1890. A military tribunal originally sentenced 308 Indians to death for their parts in the uprising - but President Lincoln (upon the...

Some speculate this week’s lethal injection caused slow, excruciating death JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Death penalty foes have warned for years of the possibility that an inmate being executed by lethal injection could remain conscious, experiencing severe pain as he slowly dies. That day may have arrived. Angel Nieves Diaz, a career criminal executed for killing a Miami topless bar manager 27 years ago, was given a rare second dose of deadly chemicals as he took more than twice the usual time to succumb. Needles that were supposed to inject drugs into the 55-year-old man’s veins were instead pushed all the...

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge who imposed a moratorium on executions in California ruled Friday that the state's method of lethal injection is unconstitutional because it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. California's "implementation of lethal injection is broken, but it can be fixed," U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel said. Fogel said the case raised the question of whether a three-drug cocktail administered by the San Quentin State Prison is so painful that it "offends" the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Fogel said he was compelled "to answer that question in the affirmative." Fogel's...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --Defense attorneys and death penalty opponents were outraged Thursday over an execution in which the condemned man took more than half an hour to die, needed a rare second dose of lethal chemicals, and appeared to grimace in his final moments. "I am definitely appalled at what happened. I have no doubt he suffered unduly," Angel Nieves Diaz's attorney, Suzanne Myers Keffer, said after Diaz died by injection. Executions in Florida normally take about 15 minutes, with the inmate rendered unconscious and motionless within the first three to five minutes. But Diaz took 34 minutes to die and...

STARKE, Fla. - Death penalty opponents criticized the execution of a convicted murderer who took more than half an hour to die and needed a rare second dose of lethal chemicals. Angel Nieves Diaz, 55, convicted of murdering a Miami topless bar manager 27 years ago, appeared to grimace before dying Wednesday, 34 minutes after the first dose. Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said she doesn't believe Diaz felt any pain and had liver disease, which required the second dose. "It was not unanticipated. The metabolism of the drugs to the liver is slowed," Plessinger said. Diaz's cousin Maria...

Execution set for Arkansas man in 1994 kidnap-rape-murder Associated Press TERRE HAUTE, Ind. - The government has set an April 16 federal execution for an Arkansas man convicted in the 1994 kidnapping and death of a 16-year-old girl who was raped, beaten and buried alive after her abduction was recorded in a desperate 911 call. Bruce Carneil Webster, 33, of Pine Bluff, Ark., is scheduled to die by injection at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute at 7 a.m. that day, the Bureau of Prisons said in a news release. Webster and another man on the federal death row here,...

Less than a day before Jerome Henderson was scheduled to die for the 1985 stabbing death of a neighbor, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a stay of his execution by lethal injection. Henderson, 47, was set to be executed Tuesday morning for the aggravated murder and robbery of 26-year-old Mary Acoff during a break-in at her Cincinnati home on March 3, 1985. He was also convicted of the attempted rape of Acoff, whose 10-year-old daughter found her lying in a pool of blood, nude from the waist down. [Snip] Earlier this year, Henderson joined a lawsuit brought by fellow Ohio...

Saudi Government-Appointed Executioner for Mecca, Abdallah Al-Bishi, Discusses His Calling and Demonstrates His Weapons and Methods Following are excerpts from an interview with the executioner for Mecca, Abdallah Al-Bishi, which aired on LBC TV on November 4, 2006. Reporter: This is the most renowned executioner in Saudi Arabia, Abdallah Bin Sa'id Al-Bishi, who carries out the executions. His sword delineates the border between seriousness and play. There is no negotiating with him, once the heads have ripened. When it's harvesting time, he is the most suited for the job. Abdallah Al-Bishi: I started to work in this field after the...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - Texas executed a man on Wednesday by lethal injection for the 1992 murder of a man whom he shot dead during a car hijacking outside a Houston shopping center. Willie Shannon, 33, was convicted of the slaying of Benjamin Garza who was waiting for his wife and children in his car when he was attacked. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Shannon, who was then 19 years old, entered the passenger side of the car and shot Garza in the head after a brief struggle. He was later apprehended after being spotted driving the stolen...

Saddam Hussein has been convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.he former Iraqi leader was convicted over the killing of 148 people in the mainly Shia town of Dujail following an assassination attempt on him in 1982. His half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also sentenced to death. Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan got life in jail and three others received 15-year prison terms. Another co-defendant, Baath party official Mohammed Azawi Ali, was acquitted. Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants will be given the right to appeal, but that is expected...

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Gregory Summers was executed Wednesday for initiating a murder-for-hire plot that authorities said led to the fatal stabbing of his parents and an uncle. Gregory Summers The lethal injection of Summers, 48, came more than seven years after the execution of Andrew Cantu, convicted of taking the $10,000 offer and fatally stabbing Gene and Helen Summers, both 64, and Billy Mack Summers, 60. Their home in Abilene was set on fire after they were attacked and their bodies were found in the rubble. Gregory Summers was the 22nd inmate executed this year in Texas, the nation's most...

Livingston - A man scheduled to be executed for murdering a store clerk committed suicide early on Thursday in his death-row cell, less than 18 hours before he was scheduled to be executed, a prison official said. Michael Dewayne Johnson slashed his throat with a makeshift blade fashioned from a small piece of metal attached to a wooden stick, said Michelle Lyons, spokesperson for the Texas department of criminal justice in Huntsville. Prison guards had been checking on Johnson's welfare every 15 minutes, as is customary, when they He was transported to a hospital in nearby Livingston, where he was...