Man faces court over Saddam taunting

Iraqi officials have handed a man over to magistrates after a government investigation into who taunted Saddam Hussein with sectarian…

Iraqi officials have handed a man over to magistrates after a government investigation into who taunted Saddam Hussein with sectarian abuse moments before the former president was hanged, an Iraqi official said.

Iraq government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said an official government inquiry concluded that the taunting captured on an illicit video of Saddam's December 30 execution could be blamed on "individual behavior".

Dabbagh's comments appeared on the same day that a new clandestine video showing Saddam's corpse with a vivid red wound on the neck was posted on the Internet, further inflaming sectarian passions in a country on the brink of civil war.

"The government has discovered the person who did this," Dabbagh told a news conference, referring to the shouting.

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"This person has been referred to the court. The government does not interfere in the work of the judicial system and now it is for the court to decide."

He did not identify the man or explain why he was the only person under investigation for jeering Saddam on the gallows.

In the grainy video several men can be heard taunting Saddam as hangmen in black balaclavas slip the noose over his neck.

The footage provoked a flood of condemnation from around the world for the manner in which Saddam's execution was conducted.