Man hired to videotape Saddam’s Execution

In a NEWSWEEK exclusive, the man hired to videotape Saddam Hussein’s execution recalls the brutal dictator’s humble final moments.
Dec. 30, 2006 - Ali Al Massedy was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator's execution at dawn on Saturday. "I saw fear, he was afraid," Ali told NEWSWEEK minutes after returning from the execution. Wearing a rumpled green suit and holding a Sony HDTV video camera in his right hand, Ali recalled the dictator's last moments. "He was saying things about injustice, about resistance, about how these guys are terrorists," he says. On the way to the gallows, according to Ali, "Saddam said, ‘Iraq without me is nothing.’"
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Saddam called on Iraqis not to hate the U.S.

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 Dujail in 1982. >> Read Here