Iran calls for execution of Saddam - AP

TEHRAN, Iran Iran called on Iraq on Tuesday to carry out its death sentence on Saddam Hussein, saying the former dictator who waged an eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s was a criminal who deserved to die.

"We hope the fair, correct and legal verdict against this criminal ... is enforced," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told a news conference.

On Sunday, an Iraqi court in Baghdad sentenced Saddam and two other senior members of his regime to death by hanging for crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 people in the northern town of Dujail. The victims were detained and tortured after a 1982 attempt to assassinate Saddam as he visited the town.

An Iraqi appeal court is expected to rule on the guilty verdict and death sentence by the middle of January.

"He is a criminal dictator. No doubt about it," Elham said of Saddam. "We hope no pressure will be applied not to carry out this verdict."