Baghdad Saddam Hussein combined a shrewd tactical mind with a taste for violence as he rose from humble beginnings to enjoy three decades of absolute power in Iraq.
But overarching ambition, which saw him invade neighbouring Iran and Kuwait and defy former US allies who accused him of developing nuclear and chemical weapons, destroyed Iraq's oil-rich economy and finally brought him down.
Sixty-nine-year-old Saddam rose from fatherless poverty in Tikrit to seize power in a 1968 coup with his pan-Arab Baath party.
He went from being the Baath's power-behind-the-throne to Iraq's presidency in 1979 and invaded Iran the following year, launching a war that lasted eight years and killed hundreds of thousands of people, scarring an entire generation.
His rule crumbled when US tanks swept into Baghdad in April of 2003. Saddam, meaning "one who confronts" in Arabic, was captured in December of that year when American soldiers found him in a hole near his hometown of Tikrit.
He had vowed to go down fighting, as his sons did months before, but gave up without firing a shot. US forces said Saddam was disoriented when they found him in a pit covered with polystyrene and a rug, near a simple shack in an orange grove.
"I am the president of Iraq, and I want to negotiate," he told the soldiers who found him.
The hut where he had been staying consisted of one room with two beds and a fridge containing a can of lemonade, a packet of hot dogs and an opened box of Belgian chocolates. Several new pairs of shoes lay in their boxes scattered around the floor.
A US general said that he was caught "like a rat" and many Arabs who had admired his defiance of the United States were shocked by his failure to fight back.
Iraqis who lived for years under the gaze of proud Saddam statues and posters saw humiliating images of him in custody, mouth held open by a probing medic, an unfamiliar beard streaked grey and dishevelled after months on the run.
Saddam was sentenced in November to hang for crimes against humanity for killing, torture and other crimes against 148 Shi'ites following a 1982 attempt on his life.
An appeals court upheld the ruling on Tuesday and he was hanged in Baghdad on Saturday.
In a letter written after his sentencing in November, he said: "I offer myself in sacrifice. If my soul goes down this path (of martyrdom) it will face God in serenity."
US President George W Bush hailed the death sentence as a milestone for democracy and US officials presented the trial as an Iraqi catharsis.
However, Iraq is gripped by sectarian and ethnic strife in which tens of thousands of people have died.
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