'Chemical Ali' awaits review
2007-07-14 18:57
Sulaimaniyah - Iraq's deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh on Saturday said the notorious "Chemical Ali", cousin and aide of Saddam Hussein, would be executed in the northern Kurdish town of Halabja.
Saleh made the announcement in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah during a meeting with the Halabja Victims' Society, a non-profit organisation representing the victims of a poisonous gas attack there in 1988.
On March 16, 1988, Saddam's troops strafed Halabja with chemical gases, killing 5 000 Kurds in one of the biggest military operations against the people of the northern Kurdish region during the Iran-Iraq war.
The brutal attack was allegedly masterminded by Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as "Chemical Ali" for deploying poison gas against the Kurds.
An Iraqi court on June 24 sentenced Majid to hang for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the military campaign, which prosecutors claim killed 182 000 people.
A nine-member appeals court is currently reviewing the sentence and is expected to give its decision soon.
If the appeals panel certifies the sentence, Majid will have to be executed within 30 days under Iraqi law.
The Halabja attack took place during the military campaign but was not part of the trial which saw Majid and six others in the dock.
On Thursday a senior Iraqi official said that the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was considering hanging Majid in the northern region.
"Thousands of our Kurdish people have requested that Chemical Ali be hanged in Kurdistan," said Bassim Ridha, an adviser to Maliki.
"The government is considering these requests. However his sentence is still to be certified by the appeals court," he said.