Iraq’s Presidential Council endorsed the death sentence for Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in the gassing of thousands of Iraqi Kurds during a 1988 campaign of genocide.
Al-Majid, a cousin of former President Saddam Hussein, will be executed within 30 days, President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said today on the party’s Web site. Talabani, a Kurd, is joined on the council by vice presidents Adel Abdul al-Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, and Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim.
In June, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court convicted al-Majid of genocide and crimes against humanity. The death penalty also was handed down for his co-defendants, former Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed and the former associate army chief, Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, who were found guilty of the same charges.
“The individuals in question are still in U.S. custody,” American Embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said in a statement e-mailed from Baghdad after the council’s decision. “We will comply with a request to transfer custody once the government of Iraq has arrived at a consensus as to the legal process that must be followed with regard to these executions. We have not yet received a request in this regard.”
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The military of Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime used chemical weapons on villages in the Kurdish north of Iraq during the campaign, named “Anfal,” Arabic for “the spoils.” Some 180,000 people were killed, the Kurdish Regional Government, which administers northern Iraq, said on its Web site. Hussein, who was executed in 2006, also directed the persecution of the country’s Shiite majority.
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