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BAGHDAD - Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein will be executed before 6.00am local time (4pm NZT) today, an Iraqi official close to Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki's office said, five hours before this deadline.
Arabic TV reported at about 3.45pm NZT that final preparations has been made and said Saddam had arrived at the execution site.
Earlier, Iraqi officials in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's entourage had said that they were in talks with American officials about transfering Saddam from US military custody in order to carry out the planned execution.
"The meeting with the Americans is over," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "They decided Saddam will be hanged before 6.00am."
Judge Moneer Haddad, who has been assigned to witness the execution on behalf of the appeal court which confirmed Saddam's death sentence, also said that the hanging appeared to be imminent.
"I have new news," he told AFP. "Perhaps they will hang in him in two hours. They called me and asked me to come."
A US federal judge this afternoon refused to halt the US military from handing over Saddam Hussein for execution after a last minute plea from his attorneys.
"Petitioner Hussein's application for immediate, temporary stay of execution is denied," TV networks reported US District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said after a hearing over the telephone with attorneys.
Earlier Friday, lawyers for Saddam had asked the judge to block his execution by preventing US forces from transferring him to Iraqi custody, arguing that as a prisoner of war, he deserved protection under the Geneva Conventions.
Earlier today, one of Saddam's lawyers said US forces had handed over the former president to Iraqi authorities for execution.
US officials, however, insisted that the 69-year-old ousted dictator was still in American hands.
And a leading politician said Maliki was waiting for a religious ruling on whether Saturday's start of the Eid al-Adha holiday, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca, meant the execution should be postponed for a week.
An appeals court on Tuesday upheld Saddam's November 5 death sentence for the killings, torture and other crimes against the Shi'ite population of the town of Dujail.
After a day of conflicting signals, during which the Justice Ministry had said it could legally do nothing for a month, the senior Iraqi source said debate over whether a presidential decree was needed to override that was over.
"That is resolved so it seems it's possible he may be hanged tonight," the source said.
Najib Naimi, a former Qatar justice minister who served on Saddam's legal defence team, said he expected his client to be hanged at dawn on Saturday.
"We think he might be executed by tomorrow as a gift for the Iraqis," he told BBC News 24.
"Maybe early tomorrow morning he might be executed ... we are now talking with them regarding the body itself," he said. "We would like to have his body to return it to the family so they can bury him at any place they wish."
If it goes ahead, Maliki, whose authority has been in question as the country slides toward all-out sectarian civil war, would seem to have forced through a decision popular with Shi'ites in the face of resistance from Saddam's fellow Sunnis and from Kurds keen to see Saddam first convicted of genocide against them.
Earlier Saddam's chief defence lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, told Reuters that US officials had transferred Saddam to Iraqi authorities. He said he had been told to arrange to collect Saddam's personal belongings -- a move another defence lawyer said indicated he could die on Saturday.
A US official in Baghdad denied Saddam had been handed over. "He is still in US custody," the official told Reuters.
US troops have hitherto physically kept guard over Saddam and were expected to hold on to him until the last minute to avoid security breaches.
A source in the team that prosecuted Saddam for crimes against humanity said prosecutors, who should have a representative at any execution, had not yet been invited to attend.
Shi'ite politician Bahaa al-Araji said Maliki had asked Shi'ite religious leaders and clerics from Saddam's Sunni Arab minority whether Saddam could be executed immediately. He told Reuters they may approve a hanging before noon (10pm NZT), when the festival formally begins, or say it should be delayed.
- AFP, REUTERS
