The former high-level Iraqi official known as "Chemical Ali" is being tried again after having already received two death sentences, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 2).
(Dec. 22) -
Ali Hassan al-Majid, shown last year in an Iraqi court, began a new trial yesterday for his role in the 1998 chemical weapon killings at Halabja (Getty Images).
Ali Hassan al-Majid, cousin to previously executed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, is among four former regime officials who went on trial yesterday for the March 1988 gas attack that killed 5,000 residents of the Kurdish village of Halabja (see GSN, March 17).
"We ask the court to execute Chemical Ali and to heal the wounds he caused by gassing our beloved," Kurd Shereen Hassan said during a protest in Halabja.
"I will never rest until I see him hanged," said Peshtwan Qader.
Al-Majid's has been convicted and sentenced to death for helping to carry out the late-1980s Anfal campaign against Iraqi Kurds, whom the Hussein regime suspected of aiding Iran during its war with Iraq, and for putting down a Shiite revolt that followed the first Gulf War. He has not yet been put to death due to differences within the Iraqi government.
He has been in U.S. custody since being detained but is due to be turned over to Iraqi authorities in short order, along with thousands of other prisoners, under a new security arrangement (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Dec. 21).