Ramadan hanged

Saddam Hussein's former vice president was hanged for crimes against humanity early yesterday, the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein from power.

Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was the third of Saddam's top aides to be hanged since the former president was executed in December after a trial in a US-backed Iraqi tribunal that was criticised by human rights groups as unfair.

The executions have done nothing to subdue violence that has engulfed Iraq since 2003, and some Sunni Arabs say they have exacerbated sectarian fighting that now borders on civil war.

Witnesses said Ramadan's body, wrapped in an Iraqi flag, was received as a martyr by hundreds of people in Awja, the town north of Baghdad where Saddam was born. Gunmen fired shots in the air to honour him.

He was buried near Saddam's sons and two aides hanged earlier this year, Awad al-Bander and Barzan al-Tikriti, outside the hall housing Saddam's tomb, as requested in his will.

Government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the execution of Ramadan went according to plan and measures were taken to ensure there was no repeat of Barzan's botched hanging that left him decapitated.

Shortly after Ramadan was hanged in the early hours, a car bomb near a Baghdad police station killed at least five people and wounded 17 and another car bomb in Baghdad killed three. Mortar bombs later killed seven in southern Baghdad.

In western Anbar province, tribal fighters and police clashed with al Qaeda linked militants near Falluja. A provincial official in Ramadi said 39 militants were killed, along with nine tribal fighters and eight policemen.

Salih Abu Mehdi, 43, a security guard and father of six children, said he felt Iraq was lost four years into the war.

"We never expected this would happen. We were hoping to live like a European country, not to be living like this," he said.

"I was not one of Saddam's supporters but, as many Iraqis would say now, Saddam's days were better. At least things were more secure and calm.