BAGHDAD – An Iraqi court has sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majeed, widely known as “Chemical Ali”, to death by hanging for a 1988 gas attack that killed about 5,000 Kurds.
Majeed, a cousin of Saddam Hussein who earned his nickname because of his use of poison gas, was convicted for an attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja. He already faces death sentences in three other cases.
“The decision has been issued . . . to sentence Ali Hassan al-Majeed to death by hanging . . . for crimes against humanity,” Aref Abdul-Razzaq al-Shahin, the head of the court, said yesterday.
The Iraqi high tribunal also sentenced former defence minister Sultan Hashem and former military intelligence chief Sabir al- Douri to 15 years in prison each for the attack, and Abd Mutlaq al-Jubouri, a former regional intelligence chief, to 10 years.
Majeed was captured in August 2003, five months after US forces invaded Iraq. He had a reputation for ruthlessness in crushing Saddam’s opponents. Many Iraqis feared him more than the leader himself. He was sentenced to hang in June 2007 for his role in a military campaign against ethnic Kurds that lasted from February to August 1988.
Majeed also received a death sentence in December 2008 for his role in crushing a Shia revolt after the 1991 Gulf War and another in March 2009 for his involvement in killing and displacing Shia Muslims in 1999.
Saddam was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shia men and boys after an assassination attempt.
About 290,000 people disappeared in Iraq under Saddam’s rule from 1979 to 2003, according to estimates by New York-based Human Rights Watch. The Iraqi high tribunal was set up after the 2003 US invasion to try former members of his government.