IRAQ:Ali Hassan al-Majid, the notorious "Chemical Ali", faced charges of crimes against humanity yesterday at the start of his trial for crushing the Iraqi Shia rebellion at the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
Majid, a first cousin of Saddam Hussein, was the most prominent of 15 of the executed dictator's closest aides and henchmen in the dock in Baghdad. He and three of the other defendants have already been sentenced to death in another case.
The Iraqi high tribunal said the 15, also including Saddam's former personal secretary and defence minister, were facing the gallows for alleged systematic attacks against civilians.
Iraq's southern Shia Muslims were encouraged to rebel after US-led coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation but failed to follow it up with regime change in Baghdad. An estimated 100,000 died in what became known as the Shia "intifada" or uprising.
Majid, who got his nickname from allegedly ordering gas attacks on Kurdish towns during the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s, reportedly sat subdued for most of the session, standing once to question the first witness.
The chief judge, Muhammad Oreibi al-Khalifa, said the men were charged with crimes against humanity, which officials said included murder, torture, persecution and random detentions.
They said the evidence includes tapes and after-action reports but few actual orders because of a regime-ordered destruction of records.
In March 1991, Shias in the south and Kurds in the north - both repressed under Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baathist regime - sought to take advantage of the defeat, seizing control of 14 of the country's 18 provinces, with dramatic successes in Najaf, Karbala and Basra. US troops created a safe haven for the Kurds in three northern provinces, preventing Saddam from attacking. However Iraqi forces were allowed to use helicopters and tanks in the south and crushed the uprising.
Then US president George Bush snr had called on Iraqis to oust the dictator but explained later that he did not want the Iraqi state to break up and feared the collapse of the coalition he had assembled, which included Arab states.
"The acts committed against the Iraqi people in 1991 by the security forces and by the defendants were among one of the ugliest crimes ever committed against humanity in modern history," said prosecutor Mahdi Abdul-Amir.
"Majid used to come to detention centres, tie the hands of the detainees and then shoot them dead. The dead were later buried in mass graves," he said. "Many mass graves have been found since the 2003 war ended and we will find many more if we keep searching."
The new trial came as Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, came under increasing pressure over the political situation in the country. US president George Bush admitted last night that there was "frustration" with Mr Maliki's government, but said it was up to the Iraqi people to decide whether to continue supporting him.
Washington has complained of insufficient progress towards political reconciliation, which is necessary to allow the US to pull out.
Earlier yesterday France's foreign minister Bernard Kouchner told French radio from Baghdad that Europe must play a bigger role because "the Americans will not be able to get this country out of difficulty alone". Mr Kouchner is the first French minister to visit Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.