Saddam Hussein's `goodbye' letter posted on Internet

Indian sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik puts finishing touches on a sand sculpture titled Fate Of Saddam at Puri Beach, Bhubaneswar, in the southern Indian state of Orissa, on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein urged Iraqis to embrace "brotherly coexistence" and not to hate US-led foreign troops in a goodbye letter posted on a Web site the day after Iraq's highest court upheld his death sentence and ordered him hanged within 30 days.

The Iraqi High Tribunal published yesterday a formal judgement rejecting the ousted dictator's appeal against his conviction for crimes against humanity and ordering his death.

The official release of the judgement, signed by Judge Arif Abdulrazzak Shaheen of the Iraqi High Criminal Court in Baghdad, set in motion the procedures which should lead to Saddam being executed within a month.

One Saddam's attorneys, Issam Ghazzawi, confirmed to reporters in Jordan that the Internet letter posted on Wednesday was authentic, saying it was written by Saddam on Nov. 5 -- the day he was convicted by an Iraqi tribunal for ordering the 1982 killings of 148 Shiite Muslims in Dujail.

"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking," said the letter, which was written in Arabic and translated.

"I also call on you not to hate the people of the other countries that attacked us," it added, referring to the invasion that toppled his regime nearly four years ago.

Against backdrop of sectarian killings that have dragged Sunni Arabs and Shiite Muslims into civil warfare over the past year, Saddam urged his countrymen to "remember that God has enabled you to become an example of love, forgiveness and brotherly coexistence."

But he also voiced support for the Sunni Arab-dominated insurgency. "Long live jihad and the mujahedeen," he wrote.

He urged Iraqis to be patient and rely on God's help in fighting "against the unjust nations."

Saddam he was giving his life for his country as part of that struggle.

"Here, I offer my soul to God as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs," he said.

The deposed leader said he was writing the letter because his lawyers had told him the Iraqi High Tribunal that tried his case would give him an opportunity to say a final word.

"But that court and its chief judge did not give us the chance to say a word, and issued its verdict without explanation and read out the sentence -- dictated by the invaders -- without presenting the evidence," Saddam wrote.

"Dear faithful people, I say goodbye to you," Saddam wrote.

"But I will be with the merciful God who helps those who take refuge in him and who will never disappoint any honest believer," he said.