Saddam Hussein

One of the world's most notorious and ruthless killers, Saddam Hussein went from threatening school teachers to joining the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party where he played a major role in the party's assassination attempt of Iraq's then Prime Minister Abul Karim Qassim in October 1959. When his assassination buddies were being executed, Hussein fled to Syria and seeked refuge in Egypt where he studied law at the University of Cairo and returned to Iraq in 1963 only when the military successfully overthrew Qassim's government. His role models were tyrants like Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler so it was no wonder that he proved to be a ruthless but effective politician and he rose to power, becoming Iraq's president in 1979.

Once he became president, Hussein called in a meeting for 250 party members where he announced that a plot against him had been discovered and that there were conspirators in the room. 68 people were named, arrested and removed and in the end twenty two were sentenced to death with the ordeal being filmed and circulated around Iraq. It was a clear message of who was in charge, Saddam.

Like any ruthless leader, anyone who made fun of Saddam could lose a tongue or pay with their life. Saddam Hussein believed it was wrong to murder a person of suspicion and be wrong than it was to be not, and be killed by them. He had a meticulously crafted image consisting of hair dyed black, mustache, 6 foot stature and well-tailored suits to hide a protruding belly. His greatest fear was germs and he maintained a limited world view and possessed little knowledge of Western culture, laws and advancements in technology. Throughout his regime and despite having no prior military experience, he pushed Iraq into many wars, the Iran-Iraq War and The Invasion of Kuwait.

Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein lost his seat in government and hid in a spider hole near his hometown of Al Awja, Iraq. He was eventually arrested and sentenced to death for the murder of 148 Iraqis in 1982 which he did in fear of being assassinated. On 30th December 2006, he was executed with his last words being the Shahadah, the Islamic creed that Muslims say to declare their belief in the oneness of God and the acceptance of Muhammad (the founder of Islam) as the messenger to God and is often stated as "There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger." Before Hussein could say Muhammed for the second time, he was executed by hanging.