http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...NG1DQL3KD1.DTL
'Chemical Ali' sentenced to hang
2 other senior aides to Hussein also to be executed for their roles in the deaths of 180,000 Kurds
John Ward Anderson, Washington Post
Monday, June 25, 2007
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(06-25) 04:00 PDT Baghdad -- Three senior aides to Saddam Hussein were found guilty Sunday of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in the slaughter of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s.
The most notorious of the defendants, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- a cousin of Hussein and former general known as "Chemical Ali" -- received five death sentences for ordering the use of deadly mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds during the so-called "Operation Anfal" crackdown.
Hussein had been a defendant in the case but was executed last year for ordering the killings of 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1982.
Some Kurds said after Sunday's hearing, which was nationally televised, that they felt deprived of justice because of the rush to execute Hussein. The government had hoped his quick death would allow Iraqis to put the past behind them and focus on transforming the country into a functioning democracy.
"I wished they had kept Saddam alive and had not executed him until they finish all the trials, so all Iraqis, including Kurds, could feel that they had been repaid for the injustices of his regime," said Saman Mahmood Aziz, 55, a teacher whose wife and five children died during the Anfal campaign. But he added, "We feel so happy after seeing the verdict today against Chemical Ali."
But Sukaina Taqi Khurshid al-Hamawandi 69, who lost 19 family members, including five sons, in the campaign, said: "I do not feel happy today for the verdict against my sons' murderers. This will not bring my family back."
Al-Majid, army commander of northern Iraq during the Anfal campaign, once was one of the most powerful and feared men in the country. In asking for the death penalty for him in April, prosecutor Munqith al-Faroun said al-Majid was "the ultimate master of the genocide operations against the Kurds," while the other accused bore responsibility for a "plan that was implemented in stages to eliminate the Kurdish race from the north of Iraq."
Also sentenced to death were Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai, 67, the former defense minister who led the Iraqi delegation at the cease-fire talks that ended the 1991 Gulf War, and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, 66, a former deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces.
All three men were found guilty of genocide, which is defined as the systematic elimination of a group of people because of their religion, race, ethnicity or nationality. Each also was sentenced to death on separate charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
As his sentence was read, Mohammed, wearing a traditional red-checkered Arabic headdress, repeatedly interrupted Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, saying at one point, "Thank God! We defended Iraq. We are not agents."
When al-Khalifa finished listing Mohammed's three death sentences and announced a seven-year sentence for attacking various religious buildings, Mohammed laughed.
"Thank God we did not become traitors, cowards, agents nor thieves," he said. "Long live the glorious Iraqi army!"
When his first death sentence was read, al-Majid smiled and mumbled, "Thank God."
All of the defendants had asserted their innocence during trial, often saying they were simply following the orders of superiors and military action against Kurdish rebels was justified because they were backing Iran in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
"I was a soldier, and I took the oath of my country and defended my country as best I could," Mohammed said during the trial.
The sentences will be sent to Iraq's Appeals Court, al-Khalifa said in announcing the verdicts. The appeals process can be swift: Hussein was convicted of war crimes Nov. 5, lost his appeal Dec. 26, and was hanged four days later.
The Anfal trial, held in a courtroom in Baghdad's Green Zone, opened Aug. 21. Numerous witnesses testified about the horrors of the Iraqi military's scorched-earth campaign against the Kurds, military planes dropping poisonous chemicals that blinded and burned them, men being tortured and executed in concentration camps, women being raped, and towns being leveled. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced.
Early in the trial, Ali Mostafa Hama, a goat farmer, described a April 16, 1987, attack on his isolated village of Baselan in which bombs were dropped, followed by a smell "like rotting apples, or garlic."
"Minutes later, a lot of people, their eyes became sore and they started crying," and people ran to nearby mountains and caves, he testified. "Our bodies were burning us, and we lost the ability to see. The echo of our screams was coming from wherever we were, and we had nothing other than God."
A woman gave birth during the flight, and the child died with his first breaths, Hama said. The woman named her son Kimyawi, or Chemical, he testified.
In a statement released Friday, Richard Dicker, director the International Justice Program for Human Rights Watch, said the Anfal trial "was marred by procedural flaws," including the removal of the first presiding judge by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Cabinet for making statements perceived as favorable to the defense.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
End of an era.
07-04-2007, 01:52 AM
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