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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam
Hussein's feared cousin and expected to be one of
the first of his henchmen to face trial for war
crimes in Iraq, massacred Shi'ites as well as Kurds,
a report issued Thursday said.
Human Rights Watch said Majid, known as 'Chemical
Ali' for gassing the Kurds in 1988, ordered the
execution of hundreds of Shi'ites in Basra during a
1999 uprising sparked by the assassination of
Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr.
Saddam was blamed for killing the revered Shi'ite
cleric and two of his sons. Sadr's third son is
Moqtada al-Sadr, the rebellious young Shi'ite cleric
who has led two uprisings against U.S. forces in the
past year.
Human Rights Watch said it had a document and
witnesses implicating Majid in the execution of at
least 120 men and boys from the uprising, in which
40 Baath Party officials died.
``Research ... strongly suggests that Iraqi security
forces and Baath Party members, under the direct
command and supervision of Ali Hassan al-Majid,
engaged in systematic extrajudicial executions,
widespread arbitrary arrest and detention, torture
and collective punishment,'' the report said.
Iraqi officials expect Majid to be among the first
of 11 Saddam lieutenants to go on trial for a range
of crimes, including crimes against humanity and
genocide, for his role in the poison gas attacks
that killed thousands of Iraqi Kurds.
Lawyers warn guilt may be hard to prove for attacks
that happened so many years ago. But the evidence
gathered by Human Rights Watch is recent and may be
more convincing in court.
DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE
Its investigators visited Basra in April and May
2003 and obtained a four-page hand-written document
from Shi'ite clerics. It had been found in the
offices of Saddam's secret police when government
buildings were looted after British troops entered
the city in April 2003.
The list is anonymous, carrying no official
letterhead to link it to Saddam's security forces, a
precaution that Human Rights Watch has noted with
other potentially incriminating documents of the
former regime.
But its authenticity is strengthened by the fact
that relatives have matched 29 of the names on the
list with bodies exhumed from a mass grave near
Basra.
Neat columns list 120 men and boys aged between 16
and 36, give their home addresses in Basra, the
dates on which they were executed and which teams
carried out the killing.
Each page has an identical heading: ``List of the
names of the criminals who confessed to taking part
in the event of March 17-18, 1999.'' The captives
died in four batches, between March 25 and May 8,
1999, and the document says the order was given by
``the Commander of the Southern Sector.'' This was
Majid.
``He referred to himself by this title in official
Iraqi government communiques at the time. Every
person interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Basra in
2003 identified the 'Commander of the Southern
Sector' in 1999 as Majid,'' the report said.
Human Rights Watch also found witnesses to the
executions. One, a 27-year old cattle herder named
Sattar, said he had stumbled on bulldozers digging
three deep trenches near the Nassiriya to Basra road
one day in spring 1999.
``The next morning about 9 a.m., while at the same
place again with my herd, four buses and six Baath
Party-like cars arrived on the scene,'' Sattar said.
He hid himself, and saw the passengers leave the
buses, guarded by armed men wearing the olive green
uniform of the Baath Party.
``Between 80 and 100 persons might have been on the
buses. The prisoners were led in a line to the
trenches where they were placed one by one ...
Seconds later, the men in uniforms began shooting
randomly at the prisoners with AK47s and BKC
machineguns. The shooting lasted several minutes,''
he said.
REUTERS
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