Saddam sentenced to death for 1982 massacre

Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging today for crimes against humanity including premeditated murder, torture and forced deportation.

In a verdict delivered by Iraq's High Tribunal today, the Iraqi leader has been found guilty of ordering the killing of 148 Shiites in Dujail, following an attempt on his life there in 1982.

The man, who ruled Iraq with an iron fist for 35 years, was visibly shaking as he waited to learn his fate and was heard shouting; "God is great."

Chief Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdul-Rahman read out the sentence at midday in the Baghdad courthouse of the Iraqi Higher Criminal Court.

"Justice has been handed out to him,'' Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said at a press conference. "This is a response to the call of thousands of sons and sisters of those executed by Saddam.'' Hussein's rule is "an era of the past, like the era of Mussolini and Hitler. The new Iraqi will be without mass graves, military coups and repression,'' Maliki said.