I'm very much in favour of the Ceaucescu solution when a tyrant is brought down. My reasoning is simple: It usually saves a lot of lives.

After the Ceaucescu moment is gone I'm in favour of a trial without the possibility of death penalty as hard as it is for the survivors.

I disagree with the argument that killing him makes him a martyr for a simple reason: A life penalty in jail may have the same result but only stronger so. I can hear already the chants: Free Saddam. And the monthly reports from his lawyers that he is not treated well. That may be a lie or not, it will have the intentioned effect:

FREE SADDAM HUSSEIN (one could even (ab)use the well known Mandela tune)

Three and twenty years in a lonely prison cell
no one to love no one to talk, his life a living Hell...
(you'd hear your children whistling that tune)

Wolfgang