Saddam's body was transferred by American helicopter to the U.S. military base at Tikrit, 80 miles north of the capital, officials in Tikrit said.
He was interred in a compound he built in the village of Ouja, a few miles south of Tikrit, where he was born 69 years and eight months before.
Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province on the Tigris River, was a major power base for Saddam, who ruled Iraq through intimidation and fear for nearly a quarter century.
Hundreds of clan members and supporters visited Saddam's burial place, which was likely to become a shrine to the fallen leader. Dozens of relatives and other mourners, some of them crying and moaning, attended Saddam's funeral shortly before dawn.
Witnesses said the building was decorated with teak wood walls in a Moroccan motif. The domed burial chamber was about 20 feet tall and hung with agreen chandelier.
A few mourners knelt before his flag-draped grave with a large framed photograph of Saddam propped up on a chair nearby.
"I condemn the way he was executed and I consider it a crime," said 45-year-old Salam Hassan al-Nasseri, one of Saddam's clansmen, who attended the interment.
Mohammed Natiq, a 24-year-old college student, said "the path of Arab nationalism must inevitably be paved with blood."
"God has decided that Saddam Hussein should have such an end, but his march and the course which he followed will not end," Natiq said.
Police on Saturday blocked the entrancesto Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took to the streets, carrying pictures of Saddam, shooting into the air and calling for vengeance.
Saddam was captured in an underground hide-out near Ouja on Dec. 13, 2003, eight months after he fled Baghdad ahead of advancing American troops. He was convicted and sentenced to death last month for crimes against humanity for his role in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from Dujail after a failed 1982 assassination attempt there.
His burial place is about two miles from the graves of his sons,Odai and Qusai, in the main town cemetery. Both sons and a grandson were killed in a gunbattle with the American forces in Mosul in July 2003.
"We received the body of Saddam Hussein without any complications. There was cooperation by the prime minister and his office's director," clan chief Sheik al-Nidaa told state-run Al-Iraqiya television. "We opened the coffin of Saddam. He was cleaned and wrapped according to Islamic teachings. We didn't see any unnatural signs on his body."
