Just two days before the US midterm elections, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death.

After the verdict was read, a trembling Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people, and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"

Chief to the verdict was his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in an assassination attempt against him. "Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" he asked, standing before the panel of five judges.

Later in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approving death sentences for the 148 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him.