BAGHDAD, 25 June 2007 — An Iraqi court yesterday sentenced Saddam Hussein’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali” and two other former regime officials to death by hanging for their roles in a 1980s scorched-earth campaign that led to the deaths of 180,000 Kurds. Two other defendants were sentenced to life in prison, while a sixth was acquitted for lack of evidence.
Ali Hassan Al-Majid, Saddam’s cousin and the former head of the Baath Party’s Northern Bureau Command, stood silently as the judge read the verdict.
The judge, Mohammed Oreibi Al-Khalifa, announced that Ali Hassan had been found guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in “Operation Anfal” that killed or maimed thousands.
“You had all the civil and military authority for northern Iraq,” he said, addressing Ali Hassan who was the last to be sentenced and stood alone in the wooden defendants’ pen.
“You gave orders to the troops to kill Kurdish civilians and put them in severe conditions. You subjected them to wide and systematic attacks using chemical weapons and artillery. You led the killing of Iraqi villagers. You restricted them in their areas, burned their orchards, killed their animals. You committed genocide,” the judge said.
Ali Hassan has denied the charges in several angry outbursts during past court session but remained silent as the sentence was read. As he was led out of the court, he said: “Thanks be to God.”
Also sentenced to death was former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad Al-Tai, who headed the Iraqi delegation at the cease-fire talks that ended the 1991 Gulf War. He was convicted of ordering a large-scale attack against civilians as well as using chemical weapons against the Kurds.
Also sentenced to death was the former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi Armed Forces, Hussein Rashid Mohammed. Two other former regime officials — Farhan Mutlaq Saleh, former head of military intelligence’s eastern regional office, and former director of military intelligence under Saddam Hussein, Sabir Al-Douri, were sentenced to life in prison.
The judge said the charges were dropped against Taher Tawfiq Al-Ani, the former governor of Mosul and head of the Northern Affairs Committee, because of insufficient evidence.
Kurds welcomed the trial as their chance for vengeance, although the case did not deal with the most notorious gassing — the March 1988 attack on the northern city of Halabja that killed an estimated 5,000 Kurds.
Kurds flocked into the streets in northern Iraq, cheering, honking horns, waving banners and dancing after the verdict. “Today I was born again after I witnessed the defendant Chemical Ali in the cage, terrified as he heard the sentence,” said Fatima Rasul, 45, who lost her father and 20 relatives in the campaign.
“I demand that Ali be transported to Halabja or any Kurdish town to be hanged,” Rasul said.
“The contrast between the methods used by these Saddam loyalists to carry out ‘justice’ and the legal way they have been prosecuted could not be more stark,” the Kurdish regional government said in a statement.
