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Iraq court confirms death sentence for
'Chemical Ali', he will be hanged within 30 days
4.9.2007
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September 4, 2007
BAGHDAD, -- A top Iraqi court has confirmed
the death sentence on "Chemical Ali" and two other
cohorts of Saddam Hussein convicted of genocide and
crimes against humanity, a senior judge said on
Tuesday.
"The Iraqi Supreme Court has confirmed the death
sentence on Ali Hassan al-Majid, Sultan Hashim
al-Tai and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti," the court
head Judge Aref Shaheen told a press conference.
Majid, widely known as "Chemical Ali," was the
executed Iraqi dictator's most notorious hatchet
man, Tai was his defence minister and Tikriti was
armed forces deputy chief of operations.
The three
were sentenced to death on
June 24 after being found responsible
for the slaughter of thousands of ethnic Kurds in
the so-called Anfal campaign of 1988.
They will be hanged within 30 days in line with
Iraqi law. |
Ali Hassan al-Majid, first cousin of executed
dictator Saddam Hussein and also known as 'Chemical
Ali', 'Butcher of Kurdistan' sentenced to death over Kurdish genocide, AP |
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An estimated 182,000 Kurds were killed and 4,000
villages wiped out in the brutal campaign of
bombings, mass deportation and gas attacks known as
Anfal.
"Thousands of people were killed, displaced and
disappeared," Iraqi High Tribunal chief judge
Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah said after he had
passed sentence in June.
"They were civilians with no weapons and nothing to
do with war."
Majid, 66, was the last of the six defendants to
learn his fate in the Anfal case -- the second trial
of former Saddam cohorts on charges of crimes
against humanity since the fall of the feared regime
in 2003.
He muttered only "Thanks be to God" before being led
from the court.
He and the other two condemned men are currently on
trial for their roles in brutally crushing a Shiite
uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, but the charges
against them will be dropped once they have been
executed.
Saddam's regime said the Anfal campaign was a
necessary counter-insurgency operation during Iraq's
eight-year war with neighbouring Iran.
It involved the systematic bombardment, gassing and
assault of areas in the Kurdish autonomous region,
which witnessed mass executions and deportations and
the creation of prison camps.
Saddam, driven from power by a US-led invasion in
April 2003, was executed on December 30 for crimes
against humanity in a separate case and charges
against him over the Anfal campaign were dropped.
Over the course of the trial, which opened on August
21, a defiant Majid said he was right to order the
attacks.
"I am the one who gave orders to the army to
demolish villages and relocate the villagers," he
said at one hearing. "I am not defending myself. I
am not apologising. I did not make a mistake."
Iraqi Kurds were jubilant following the verdicts but
plans to execute Majid in a Kurdish province have
been dropped to prevent the hanging appearing as
revenge, an Iraqi government official said.
Human Rights Watch has expressed concern that the
Anfal verdicts could be "flawed" as in the previous
trial of Saddam over the killing of Shiites from the
village of Dujail in the 1980s.
AFP
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