Hours after the former Iraqi president was sentenced to death by hanging, Iraq's Prime MinisterNuri al-Maliki said on Sunday that 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 in a national televised speech.

The prime minister said the former leader had committed the most horrible crimes and "executing Saddam will not bring a loved one, like senior cleric Sadr, to life", referring to Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr who was killed under Saddam regime in 1999.

Earlier in the day, Saddam and two of his senior aids were sentenced to death by hanging after the Iraqi High Tribunal found them guilty of crimes against humanity over the execution of 148 Shiite villagers of Dujail in crackdown on the town after a failed assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982.

The other two defendants apart from Saddam who also got death penalty were Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamad al-Bandar, chief judge of Saddam's Revolutionary Court.

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.