"The Americans called me and asked me to pick up the personal effects of the president and Barzan al-Tikriti," said lead lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi, referring to Saddam's half brother who has also been sentenced to death.

 Dulaimi said that as far as he knew Saddam had not yet been physically handed over by US forces to the Iraqi authorities charged with hanging him.

 "President Saddam has not (to my knowledge) been transferred to the Iraqi authorities but everything is possible," he said.

 In Baghdad, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver said he could not comment on whether Saddam had been physically moved from the US base where he was being held by US troops on behalf of Iraq.

 "Legally he was turned over to the Iraqis more than a year ago," he said, reacting to reports that Saddam had been transferred to "Iraqi authority" prior to his execution.

 "At the request of the Iraqi government we have maintained him at a US facility for security reasons," Garver said.

 Saddam, Barzan and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar al-Sadun, a former chief judge of the revolutionary court, were sentenced to death by hanging by the Iraqi High Tribunal for the massacre of 148 Shiite villagers from Dujail north of Baghdad after an assassination attempt there against the Iraqi leader in 1982.

 The court on December 26 rejected their appeals against their convictions and ordered the executions be carried out. Under Iraqi law, this must occur within 30 days of the order.

Agence France Presse