Hussein Guard Is Arrested, Officials Say - New York Times

Hussein Guard Is Arrested, Officials Say - New York Times: "Hussein Guard Is Arrested, Officials Say
By JOHN F. BURNS and JAMES GLANZ

BAGHDAD, Jan. 3 — Aides to Iraq’s prime minister said today that one of the guards at the hanging of Saddam Hussein had been detained in connection with the unofficial cellphone video that showed Mr. Hussein being taunted just before his death — scenes that sparked outrage among Sunni loyalists when the video was posted on the Internet.

The aides to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki also sought to downplay the disorder depicted in the video, which showed Mr. Hussein being subjected to a battery of taunts by official Shiite witnesses and guards. The aides said the execution was more dignified than the illicit video makes it appear, and argued that in any case the focus should be on the crimes Mr. Hussein had committed.

Their assertions that a guard may have been responsible for the Internet video ran counter to the statements of witnesses to the hanging, who said that two people were using cellphone cameras to record the event, and that both were officials, not guards.

The American military, in its first public comments on the hanging, sought today to distance itself from the Maliki government’s handling of the execution."