Saddam offers self as "sacrifice"

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said in a letter released on Wednesday that he would go to the gallows as a "sacrifice" and called on his former Iraqi subjects to unite against their enemies.

Saddam, in a letter written to the Iraqi people from his cell before his appeal against a death sentence failed, said: "I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs."

Defence counsel Khalil Dulaimi said in Jordan that Saddam had written the letter in November when he was first sentenced to death and that it had been released to the public after the news that his appeal had failed.

"It's release was delayed by the length of the procedures imposed by the Americans," Dulaimi said, by way of explanation.