BAGHDAD, 11 June 2007 — The Iraqi high tribunal said yesterday it will issue a verdict in two weeks in the trial of Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali” and other former regime officials who face a possible death sentence if convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in a 1980s military campaign against the Kurds.

The decision will be announced on June 24, prosecutor Jaafar Al-Moussawi told The Associated Press after a short court session that he said was attended by the six defendants, including Ali Hassan Al-Majid, Saddam’s cousin and the former head of the Baath party’s Northern Bureau Command.

He and the other defendants face charges that include crimes against humanity for their roles in the 1980s military campaign code-named Operation Anfal.

Ali Hassan denied he was responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Kurds in the late 1980s — attacks that earned him the nickname “Chemical Ali” — in a statement on May 10 as the defense wrapped up closing arguments.

The prosecution says 180,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the operation. The defendants have claimed they were acting on orders and the campaign was aimed at Kurdish rebels supporting Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

Other defendants include Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad Al-Tai; Sabir Al-Douri, former director of military intelligence; Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi Armed Forces; and Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, former head of military intelligence’s eastern regional office.

In April, the prosecutor, Munqith Al-Faroon asked the court to convict and give the harshest penalty of death by hanging to Ali Hassan and his four co-defendants because they “did not have mercy on elderly people or women or children — not even animals or plants or the environment.”

Taher Tawfiq Al-Ani, the former governor of Mosul and head of the Northern Affairs Committee, has also been charged, but the prosecutor said he should be released because the evidence against him was insufficient.

Saddam was a defendant in the case but was hanged last year after his conviction for the killing of 148 Shiites in Dujail after a 1982 attempt on his life.

Meanwhile, violence continued unabated yesterday. A suicide truck bomb killed 14 policemen and wounded 42 at a police station north of Baghdad. Police said the bomb largely destroyed the station in the village of Albu-Ajeel in Salahaddin province. Many policemen were initially trapped under rubble, including one officer who called for help on his mobile phone.

Among the dead were five officers, including two colonels, police in the nearby provincial capital Tikrit said. More than 30 policemen were among some 50 people wounded.

Al-Qaeda and other militant groups have stepped up attacks on Iraq’s security forces across the country in recent weeks, seeking to undermine a four-month-old US-backed security plan in Baghdad and nearby regions.

The crackdown has driven some militants out of Baghdad into surrounding towns and cities, especially into Diyala province just north of Baghdad.