Saddam Hussein's former deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan was hanged before dawn for crimes against humanity, Iraqi officials said Tuesday.

Ramadan, who was vice Iraqi president when Saddam's regime was ousted four years ago by a US-led coalition forces, became the fourth ex-regime figure to be executed over the killing of 148 Shiites after Saddam escaped an assassination attempt in 1982 in the village of Dujail.

His lawyer said Monday Ramadan was allowed to call his family before the execution.

Ramadan was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the Dujail killings on Nov. 5, 2006. But the prosecutor filed petition to the appeals court last December, demanding death penalty on him.

The appeals court accepted the petition and referred the case back to the trial court, which then increased the sentence to death by hanging after a hearing session.

Ramadan, maintaining his innocence, filed against the sentence to the appeals court but his appeal was rejected.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour had called the Iraqi government to spare Ramadan, but the latter said it was determined to punish former regime officials.

Three other ex-regime figures were executed before Ramadan for the Dujail killings. Saddam was executed on Dec. 30 last year, while Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, former secret police chief, and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, head of Iraq's revolutionary court, were hanged on Jan. 15.

Ramadan, born in 1938 at a peasant family in the northern region of Mosul, was captured by Kurdish fighters in August 2003 before being handed over to US-led coalition forces.

(Xinhua News Agency March 20, 2007)