IRAQ. SADDAM OPTS FOR FIRING SQUAD

Saddam Hussein declared he would like to be executed by firing squad rather than hanged like "a common criminal" if sentenced to death at the end of his trial for genocide.
During a combative court appearance, which was his first for more than a month and came after a 17-day hunger strike that saw him taken to hospital, the former Iraqi dictator again poured scorn on chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman and US forces inside the country.
"I ask you, being an Iraqi person, that if you reach a verdict of death, execution, remember that I am a military man and should be killed by firing squad and not by hanging as a common criminal," Saddam said.
The judge replied that no verdict had even been reached in the trial of Saddam and seven co-defendants over the killing and torture of Shia Muslims in the town of Dujail following a 1982 assassination attempt against him.
Prosecutors in the trial, which began in October, had demanded the death penalty for Saddam and two others.