Saddam Hussein Executed Saturday

Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging shortly before 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Saturday, Iraqi TV Al Hurra reported.
     
The execution took place after Saddam, who was born on April 28, 1937, and was deposed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, was handed over to the Iraqi authorities from a U.S. camp near Baghdad international airport where he had been held.
  
Earlier on Friday afternoon, a U.S. judge refused a last-minute request to stay the execution as Saddam's lawyers filed the court challenge.
  
"Petitioner Hussein's application for immediate, temporary stay of execution is denied," U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said after a hearing over the telephone with attorneys.
  
On Nov. 5, a panel of five Iraqi judges sentenced Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar to death by hanging for killing of 148 people in Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad.
  
On Dec. 3, the defense lawyers of Saddam officially appealed to the higher court against the death penalty imposed on Saddam and another two codefendants.
  
However, the Iraqi appellate court chief announced on Tuesday that the court had upheld the death sentence for Saddam Hussein.

词汇：
execute: vt. 执行, 处死
petitioner：n. 请求者
appeal: n. 上诉
codefendant: n. 共同被告
uphold: vt. 支持, 赞成

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