(Adds more funeral details, hangmen taunting him) By Ibon Villelabeitia BAGHDAD, Dec 31 (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was buried in the dead of night in his home village in northern Iraq, where his body was washed and covered in a white shroud in observance of Muslim rite by a small group of fellow tribesmen. New, grainy images appeared on the Internet showing the former Iraqi president being hanged in Baghdad less than 24 hours earlier, showing his hooded executioners exchanging taunts with him and his body dropping through the trap. He was also shown hanging, with his eyes open. A source close to leading local Sunni Muslim clerics who took part in the funeral proceedings on Sunday said a crowded service was first held in Tikrit, Saddam's former power base, at a mosque built by the former leader in the 1980s. The body, which arrived in a U.S. military helicopter, was then taken to the village of Awja and laid to rest in a religious hall in the presence of a small group of local officials and tribal leaders who played a major role in Saddam's rise to power. State television showed his coffin draped in an Iraqi flag and broadcast footage of prayers during the ceremony. Mohammed al-Qaisi, governor of the local Salahaddin region, told Reuters he attended the funeral, which began at 3:05 a.m. (0005 GMT) and lasted about 25 minutes. Also present was Ali al-Nida, head of Saddam's Albu Nasir tribe. A source close to Saddam's family confirmed his remains were interred at Awja, where his sons Uday and Qusay, killed by U.S. troops in 2003, lie in a family plot in the cemetery. U.S. and Iraqi troops kept a close guard over the events, the source close to the Sunni Muslim clerics told Reuters. Arab television stations broadcast new video images of Saddam's hanging, apparently shot on a low-quality camera or cellphone by guards or other officials at the execution, from a different angle from footage shown on Iraqi state television. One video on the Internet, lasting about two-and-a-half minutes, shows Saddam drop through the trap while still intoning the Muslim profession of faith. He was abruptly cut off in the second verse: "I bear witness that Mohammad..." "GO TO HELL" The new video also bore out witness comments that the 69-year-old former leader, who looked calm and composed as he stood on the gallows, had shouted angry political slogans while masked guards were bringing him into the execution chamber once used by his own feared intelligence services. At one point a voice is heard shouting "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada," a reference to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose father was murdered in 1999, most probably by Saddam's agents. The words "go to hell" are also audible on the video seen by Iraqi staff of Reuters in Baghdad. The New York Times quoted a witness as saying one of the guards shouted just before the hanging: "You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution." Saddam answered: "I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persians and Americans." The guard cursed him, saying "God damn you," according to The New York Times. Saddam replied "God damn you." The new footage, not shown in officially released images, may fuel charges by Saddam's supporters among the once dominant Sunni Arabs that the whole process has been "victors' justice". Awja is a small settlement of unusually grand homes, signs of the prosperity it enjoyed during the rule of its most famous son, born there in poverty in 1937. It seems Saddam will lie close to but not beside his sons, whom he groomed as successors. During three decades of harsh rule, clan members from around Tikrit, and other minority Sunni Muslim Arabs, played a key role at the expense of Kurds and of the Shi'ite majority, in power since the U.S. invasion that overthrew Saddam. While government officials had indicated he might lie in a secret, unmarked grave for fear the site could become a shrine and focal point for Baathist rebels, it appears they have taken the view that the cemetery can be kept under surveillance. Three decades after Saddam established his rule by force, his death closes a chapter in Iraq's history marked by war with Iran and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait that turned him from ally to enemy of the United States and impoverished his oil-rich nation. But, as U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement, sectarian violence pushing Iraq towards civil war has not ended. Car bombs by suspected Sunni insurgents killed more than 70 people in Baghdad and in a Shi'ite holy city on Saturday. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, his fragile authority among fellow Shi'ites enhanced after he forced through Saddam's execution over hesitation among Sunni and Kurdish members of his government, urged Sunni Arabs to embrace the political process. (Additional reporting by Claudia Parsons and Alastair Macdonald)
