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Nuri al-Maliki has revealed he wants to step down as prime minister of Iraq, as one of his advisers revealed that a man accused of recording Saddam Hussein's execution on his mobile phone has been arrested.

In a candid interview with an American newspaper, Mr Maliki said that the most difficult decision he has made was his initial decision to become prime minister. "I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again," he told the Wall Street Journal.

If offered a second term he will not take it, and wishes that he can end his first term prematurely: "I wish I could be done with it even before the end of this term," he says, adding: "I would like to serve my people from outside the circle of senior officials, maybe through the parliament, or through working directly with the people."

An unnamed adviser to Mr Maliki said yesterday that the person being held over the Saddam execution video was an official who supervised the hanging.

The execution of Saddam Hussein, which was filmed on mobile phones and showed the deposed leader being taunted by prison officials, has inflamed sectarian protests with outbreaks of violence and come in for heavy criticism from both Iraqis and the international community.

An Iraqi prosecutor who was present for Saddam Hussein's execution said he saw two of the government officials taking video of the execution, using the lights that were there for the official taping of the hanging. "They used mobile phone cameras. I do not know their names, but I would remember their faces," Munqith al-Faroon said.

Iraqis handled execution

Following the controversy surrounding the execution of Saddam, US military officials have said that they would have carried it out "very differently."

A senior US general said yesterday US forces left all security measures at Saddam Hussein's execution, including searching witnesses for mobile phones, to Iraqi authorities.

Asked at a news conference in Baghdad yesterday about criticism of the hanging, US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said: "It was not our decision as to what occurred but we would have done it differently."

"We had absolutely nothing to do with the facility where the execution took place," Caldwell said, adding that US forces flew Saddam to the prison where the execution took place at dawn and then withdrew from the building.

Caldwell said US forces were not responsible for searching the witnesses for phones.

Hangings likely today

Meanwhile the two men convicted with Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity are likely to be executed today.

There are reports that Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former intelligence chief, and Awad al-Bander, a former chief judge, could be hanged as early as this morning local time. The pair had been due to be executed alongside Saddam but it had been postponed due to the religious holiday.

However the government is insisting that no date had been set yet. "This is not accurate information," a government aide is quoted as saying. "Most probably they will be executed next week after the holiday."

The two men were found guilty along with Saddam of the killings of 148 Shi'ite men from Dujail in the 1980s.

(China Daily January 4, 2007)