Saddam's lawyers later issued a statement saying the Americans gave permission for his belongings to be retrieved.

An Iraqi appeals court upheld Saddam's death sentence Tuesday for the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims who were detained after a 1982 attempt to assassinate him in the northern city of Dujail. The court said the hanging should take place within 30 days.

Saddam also was in the midst of a second trial, charged with genocide and other crimes for a 1987-88 military crackdown that killed an estimated 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq. Experts said his execution would probably not stop the trial from continuing for his co-defendants.

In a Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis."

"Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, a dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition. "Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam."

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