Hanging doll

A small Connecticut-based company Herobuilders, has produced a mail-order doll of late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's final minutes at the gallows. Despite having received a death threat on Thursday, Herobuilder's founder and owner, Emilio Vicale told Adnkronos International (AKI) he does not regret creating the doll or feel it is inappropriate. "What about Saddam's gassing of thousands of people - was that in good taste?" he asked, referring to Saddam's alleged responsibility for the gassing of 5,000 Kurds and poisoning of thousands more.

In what might seem a cynical marketing move, Vicale decided to manufacture the 24.95 dollar doll two months ago. It has been available on the company website since last Friday - "when we knew the execution would go ahead on Saturday," he said.

"We've sold about 100 so far," Vicale said, adding that his company - which sells a range some of 35 political action figures - usually sells about 300 dolls every 4-5 days. Herobuilders has a factory nearby to their Connecticut office and produces the dolls on demand, so Vicale is unfazed by the slower-than expected start to sales of the macabre Saddam doll. "We already have four action figures of Saddam and so its seemed natural to do this one," he said.

"We regularly receive complaints from customers over some of the dolls," he said. "We got hundreds of email threats when we produced our Osama bin Laden doll," Vicale continued.

They Also produce Saddam's son Uday, Osama bin Laden , Jesus and a variety of US polital figures.