Iraq's former president Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging in Dujail case on Sunday by a criminal tribunal, sparking demonstrations among his fellow Sunnis and celebrations among Iraqi Shiites.

Iraq's High Criminal Tribunal handed down the death penalty to the ousted president Saddam Hussein and two of his senior aides for the Dujail case on Sunday.

Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, chief judge of Saddam's Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to death over the execution of 148 people of Dujail during the crackdown on the town after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.

The former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to a life prison, while the other three Baath party local officials from Dujail received 15 years each.

Hours after the verdicts, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki delivered a national televised speech to welcome the verdicts, saying Saddam Hussein "is facing the punishment he deserves."

"This sentence is not a sentence on one man, but a sentence against all the dark period of his rule," Maliki said.

The U.S. ambassador in Iraq also hailed the verdicts in a statement, saying the verdicts shaped an "important milestone" for the Iraqi people although they may face "difficult days in the coming weeks."

"Today is an important milestone for Iraq as the country takes another major step forward in the building of free society based on the rule of law," Zalmay Khalilzad said.

According to Iraqi law, Saddam's case would be reviewed by a nine-judge panel. The review has no time limit but the death sentence, if upheld, must be carried out within 30 days.

Some analysts anticipated that the execution of Saddam may be months or years away, while some others expressed fears that the death verdict against Saddam might deepen the rift between Sunnis and Shiites in the war-torn country.

Despite a curfew imposed on Baghdad, thousands of Iraqi Shiites took to the streets in Sadr City to celebrate the verdict, raising posters of Shiite radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

In a statement issued by his office, al-Sadr called for peaceful celebrations and urged people not to attack Sunnis.

"You are called upon now to give a thanksgiving prayer," said the statement, which was read out through loudspeakers of mosques across the Shiite slum.

Similar celebrations were reported in other Shiite districts of the capital and other cities, most of them apparently peaceful.

However, Iraqi Sunnis, who once dominated during Saddam's reign, protested against the verdict shortly after it was announced.

Hundreds of residents in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, demonstrated to voice opposition to the verdict in the Arba'ien Street despite a curfew imposed on Salahudin province.

A local police source told Xinhua that the number of the demonstrators is increasing despite the U.S. troops "shot bullets in the air to disperse the protesters."

In the town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad, U.S. troops detained some demonstrators who insisted on taking to the streets to protest against Saddam's death penalty.

Source: Xinhua