Saddam's family thanks Yemeni president for support

SANA'A: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh received a message from Saddam Hussein's family in which they voiced gratitude for his position against the execution of the former Iraqi president.

"On the behest of the family of the martyr president of the Republic of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, we express thanks and appreciation for your brotherly and generous position," read the message, quoted by Yemen's official Saba news agency on Tuesday.

The message was signed by three of Saddam's nephews - Taha Abdullah al-Hajj, Muhammad Hassan al-Majid and Jassim Hassan al-Majid - who have been living in exile in Yemen since Saddam's regime was toppled by a US-led invasion in 2003.

Yemen had on Friday called on US President George W Bush to prevent the execution of Saddam, saying such a move could set off more violence in Iraq.

The former Iraqi leader was executed early Saturday in Baghdad four days after an Iraqi court upheld the death sentence handed down after Saddam was convicted for the 1982 massacre in the Iraqi city of Dujail.

On Tuesday, hundreds of people performed special prayers for Saddam in the Yemeni capital before they took to the streets to protest his execution, shouting slogans against the US and the Shia-dominated government in Iraq.

They also waved anti-US placards, with one reading: "If Saddam is martyred, every one of us is Saddam."

Saleh's nephew, Yahya Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, attended the prayers.

Yemen angered its Arab Gulf neighbours for its public opposition to the intervention by foreign military forces to end Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1991.