Saddam Hussein was buried in his own mausoleum, the mausoleum was destroyed, and no one will say where his body is

Saddam Hussein was hanged at dawn on 30 December 2006. President George W. Bush authorised moving the body by US military helicopter to Tikrit. Two clan members received it, and it was buried before dawn in a mausoleum Saddam had commissioned in his home village, al-Awja. The clan's sheikh holds a letter the family signed agreeing to the quick burial. The mausoleum became a pilgrimage site for supporters. It was destroyed during the war against Islamic State. The mostly Shiite Popular Mobilisation forces, which guard al-Awja, say an Iraqi air strike hit it after IS snipers used the roof; their security chief says the body is still there. A Salahuddin elder says the family moved it to a secret place before IS took the area. A fighter claimed Saddam's daughter Hala flew it to Jordan; a professor said she has never returned to Iraq. A deputy head of the court that tried him said Iraq's role ended at the handover. In March 2018 Iraq's Accountability and Justice body sent ministries a list of more than 4,200 Baath-era officials, with Saddam, his wives and relatives, for seizure of their assets. On 22 October 2023 a Baghdad court sentenced his daughter Raghad, who lives in Jordan, to seven years in absentia for promoting the banned Baath party in 2021 television interviews. The tomb is broken concrete and barbed wire, and the clan has left the village.