A handful of Saddam Hussein supporters wept at his graveside in a village north of Baghdad today on the first anniversary of the toppled dictator’s execution, while thousands more were prevented from visiting the tomb because of heightened security.

In a show of defiant support for the former president, leaflets protesting about his death were scattered around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad and across the Sunni belt to the north of the capital, home to Saddam loyalists, where Iraqi security forces had been put on high alert.

Some ordinary people, both minority Sunni Arabs who benefitted under the old regime and majority Shia who suffered, also admitted to regret that Saddam was no longer president, noting that the chaos since the invasion was worse than anything before.

In the village of Awja, where Saddam was born and is buried, scores of sombre-looking Sunni tribal leaders and clerics paid their respects at his tomb, which was covered in Iraqi flags and flowers and surrounded by pictures of the mustachioed leader smiling.

“With out blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you Saddam,” a group of children chanted.

Saddam’s body is entombed in a hall next to a garden that houses the graves of his sons, Uday and Qusay, who were killed in a gun fight with American forces in 2003 in the northern city of Mosul.

“The anniversary of the execution of the martyred president Saddam Hussein is a sad one and hurts all honourable Iraqis,” said Um Marwan, aged 40, who was leading a delegation of women to the burial site.

“You cannot compare Saddam to Maliki or Talabani who are hiding in the Green Zone,” she said, referring to Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, and Jalal Talabani, the President.

In the nearby village of al-Dawr thousands of people had planned a demonstration to condemn the execution followed by a march to Saddam’s graveside, but their movement was restricted by an indefinite curfew imposed from Saturday, said Selam al-Abid, a former guard to Saddam.

American and Iraqi forces also prevented people from going to Awja, he told The Times.

“Look at how the children, women, men and clerics are still crying one year after his death,” said Mr Abid, who had made it to the tomb. “It is an immortal love for this man.”

Saddam was hanged at dawn on December 30, 2006, for crimes against humanity following the killing of 148 Shia men and boys in the village of Dujail in 1982. He has also been accused of atrocities against the Kurds in northern Iraq and Shia communities in the south.

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