End of a ruthless era

Iraq | Saddam's death closes a door on dictatorship and opens new debate about Iraq's future | Mindy Belz, Jamie Dean

As a somber, black-clad Saddam Hussein marched to the gallows in the early morning hours of Dec. 30, Ralph Ayar thought about his father. Ayar, now 55 and living outside Detroit, was only 12 years old when members of Saddam's Baath Party arrested his father in the family's northern Iraqi village of Tel Kief. His crime: friendly connections to local Kurds, an ethnic group despised by the government. "They gave him no trial," Ayar told WORLD. "They led him straight from the jail to the gallows."

Ayar remembers listening with his family, including his mother, three brothers, and two sisters, as Baathist officials rounded up fellow villagers to witness the hanging in the public square: "It was devastating. . . . To this day it's devastating."

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January 13, 2007, Vol. 22, No. 1

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