Iraq executes ‘Chemical Ali’ - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Conflict in Iraq | NBC News + - BAGHDAD — Iraq on Monday executed Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein's notorious cousin known as "Chemical Ali," for the poison gas attacks that killed more than 5,000 Kurds in 1988. News of the hanging came shortly after three suicide car bombs struck downtown Baghdad . It was not immediately clear whether the attacks were linked to the execution of al-Majid. "The death sentence against Ali Hassan al-Majid has been carried out today," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. Majid earned his nickname because of his use of poison gas. He had received four death sentences, the last around a week ago for an attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja in which thousands were killed. Dabbagh said in the statement that Majid was not subjected to any abuse during the execution, unlike the insults heaped on Saddam by Shiite Muslim observers when he was hanged in December 2006.

"Everyone abided by the government's instructions and the convicted was not subjected to any breach, chanting, abuse words, or insults," Dabbagh said. Feared by many It was not clear if Majid was hanged before or after a series of coordinated suicide bombings close to well-known hotels in Baghdad in which dozens of people died. Iraqis execute 'Chemical Ali,' Hussein's cousin - SFGate Iraqis execute 'Chemical Ali,' Hussein's cousin Raheem Salman and Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, January 26, 2010 Photo: AP Close Image 1 of 1 In this image from the Iraq TV station Al Iraqiyah TV, showing Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, at an undisclosed location and thought to be shortly before he was hanged in Iraq Monday Jan. 25, 2010. It is announced Monday that Al-Majid was executed after he received his fourth death sentence for the Halabja poison gas attack in 1988 that killed some 5,000 people and earned him the chilling moniker "Chemical Ali".

less In this image from the Iraq TV station Al Iraqiyah TV, showing Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, at an undisclosed location and thought to be shortly before he was hanged in ... more Photo: AP Iraqis execute 'Chemical Ali,' Hussein's cousin 1 / 1 Back to Gallery The Iraqi government has hanged Ali Hassan al-Majid , one of the most notorious figures from Saddam Hussein 's regime, who had earned the nickname "Chemical Ali" for his gassing of the Kurds in the late 1980s. Al-Majid, 68, was executed Monday after being sentenced to death in four cases brought before an Iraqi criminal court for the killing of Kurds and Shiites during the rule of Hussein, his first cousin. Monday's execution was carried out after a final guilty verdict was rendered against him last week for the 1988 gassing of Kurds in the northern Iraqi town of Halabja, an attack that killed as many as 5,000 people and came to symbolize Hussein's brutal methods. State television broadcast two pictures of al-Majid.

One photo showed him clothed in an orange-red jumpsuit with his face uncovered. In the second picture, al-Majid wore a black hood and was flanked by two masked men. U.S. forces captured Majid in August 2003. Latest from the SFGATE homepage: Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.

Ali Hassan al-Majid obituary | World news | The Guardian Ali Hassan al-Majid obituary Brutal henchman and cousin of Saddam Hussein known as 'Chemical Ali' Ali Hassan al-Majid in court in Baghdad, 2007 Photograph: Darko Vojinovic/AP Charles Tripp Monday 25 January 2010 11.20 EST First published on Monday 25 January 2010 11.20 EST Share on Messenger Close General Ali Hassan al-Majid, who has been executed aged 68, earned the macabre nickname "Chemical Ali" from the crime for which he was finally convicted: the poison gas attack in the Kurdish region of Iraq in 1988. As head of the Iraqi Ba'ath party's northern bureau, he presided over the al-Anfal campaign, which devastated most of Kurdistan. More than 120,000 Kurds were killed during a campaign of gassings, mass executions and starvation, including around 5,000 who died in one day when the town of Halabja was saturated with chemical weapons.

Majid's attitude to this slaughter was captured on videotape when he told a group of party officials in the middle of the campaign: "Who will say anything? The international community? Fuck them." Majid personified the clannish and ruthless nature of his cousin Saddam Hussein's republic of fear in Iraq . A key figure in the country's security apparatus, in March 2003 he was made commander of the southern region, an appointment that had as much to do with instilling fear into the Iraqi forces as with organising an effective military strategy to resist the American-led onslaught. This he was incapable of doing and, seeing that the game was up, in early April he faked his own death in Basra and disappeared into hiding. Thus on the strength of military reports at the time, a version of this obituary appeared on 8 April 2003. However, he was eventually captured by American forces the following August. Born near Tikrit, Saddam's home town to the north of Baghdad, Majid was the son of the former Iraqi leader's paternal uncle, a peasant from a subordinate clan of the al-Bu Nasir tribe.

He joined the Iraqi army as a young man and, by the mid-1960s, was an NCO and driver. It was then that the family connections helped his rise. After the collapse of the Ba'ath government of 1963, the party was being rebuilt by Colonel Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, a tribal relative of Majid, who had entrusted Saddam with restoring the underground networks of the Ba'ath party. In the violent and conspiratorial world of Baghdad politics, Majid became Saddam's loyal enforcer. This stood him in good stead when al-Bakr seized power in 1968. As Saddam's star rose, so too did the fortunes of Majid. By 1976, he was director general of the office of the Ba'ath's regional command, and two years later he became head of the party's key military bureau. After his important role in the bloody party purges which accompanied Saddam's assumption of the Iraqi presidency in 1979, he was rewarded, the following year, with the directorship of public security.

This was the beginning of eight years of war with Iran, when the Iraqi regime was as much concerned with internal security as with the battle front on its eastern border. Majid rooted out real and imagined enemies with terrifying zeal, and it was these qualities that led Saddam to entrust him with the crushing of resistance in the Kurdish areas of the north in the latter stages of the war. When Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Majid was appointed governor, bringing his methods and reputation with him. Later that year, when it seemed that war with the western coalition would follow, he was recalled to Baghdad. In March 1991, he was made minister of the interior, charged with putting down the rebellions that had broken out in southern and northern Iraq following the Iraqi army's expulsion from Kuwait. He helped to crush these uprisings in his usual style, leaving some 30,000 people dead or missing. During the years of UN sanctions and isolation in the 1990s, Majid occupied a number of senior government posts, using the opportunity – as did many in the elite – to enrich himself through the web of smuggling and business deals made possible by his close connection to the ruling family.

It was said that his blatant corruption led to his dismissal as defence minister in 1995, although shifts in the politics of Saddam Hussein's clan, most of whose members were similarly implicated, probably had a significant effect. In 1996, he got the chance to rehabilitate himself. He helped organise the murder of his nephews – and Saddam's sons-in-law – Hussein Kamil and Saddam Kamil, who had fled the country in 1995, but had then unwisely returned. Thereafter, Majid was back in the centre, and, in 1997, he was appointed as overseer and coordinator of the intelligence services and of the Ba'ath party apparatus in central and southern Iraq. As the crisis between the US and the Baghdad regime closed in, it was not surprising that Saddam should have looked to one of his most loyal and ruthless clansmen to try to salvage something from the wreckage. This time, however, he and the regime were up against something that their resources of violence and cruelty were unable to handle and he was captured by the occupying forces in 2003.

Majid was held in custody in Iraq as the Iraqi High Tribunal brought a series of cases against him, throwing light on the brutality of the regime he served. Found guilty of the charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, he has received four death sentences since June 2007. The first was for his role in the devastation of Kurdistan during the Anfal operations, and the second for the part he played in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in the Shia south of the country. In 2009 he was sentenced to death for his actions in the suppression of the Shia uprising that followed the murder of Ayatollah Sadiq al-Sadr in 1999. Finally, in January 2010, he was found guilty and sentenced to death for having ordered the chemical weapons attack on Halabja in 1988. For some 40 years he had used ruthless violence in the service of his cousin Saddam Hussein , but his past finally caught up with him and Majid shared his cousin's fate on the gallows.

• Ali Hassan al-Majid, soldier and political leader, born 1941; died 25 January 2010 ExecutedToday.com » ali hassan al-majid Add comment January 25th, 2013 Headsman On this date in 2010, American-occupied Iraq hanged Ali Hassan al-Majid — Saddam Hussein ‘s cousin and longtime aide, better known as Chemical Ali. Ali Hassan al-Majid as the King of Spades in the U.S. invasion force’s playing-card deck of wanted Iraqis . Al-Majid acquired his chilling nickname for the notorious March 1988 attack on the Kurdish city of Halabja . That day, after an appetizer of conventional bombing, Iraqi jets dropped a cocktail of multiple chemical weapons — mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and VX, give or take — killing up to 5,000 people. “It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame,” wrote the ethnically Iranian BBC correspondent Kaveh Golestan,* who arrived on the scene after the bombardment. “It was a new kind of death to me.

You went into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where she had been cutting a carrot. (…) The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl’s mouth and she died in my arms.” It was the most emblematically ghastly event in a running ethnic cleansing campaign of the late 1980s, also headed by al-Majid. The Halabja attack was the last of four separate death sentences Chemical Ali racked up after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and it was handed down just a week before he stood on the gallows . The larger Kurdish genocide campaign as a whole was a separate death sentence from Halabja; there were also two others for his brutal suppressions of Shia uprisings in the 1990s. He met all his tribunals defiantly, refusing to enter a plea and then openly embracing the atrocities imputed him.

“I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate villagers,” he once spat in court . “I am not defending myself, I am not apologizing. I did not make a mistake.” * Himself a casualty of the Iraq War: Golestan was killed when he stepped on a landmine in 2003 . On this day.. 'Chemical Ali' executed in Iraq Saddam Hussein cousin put to death for crimes against humanity. 25 Jan 2010 20:55 GMT Al-Majid was involved in a campaign in which 182,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed [EPA] In March 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the village of Halabja and sprayed it with a deadly mix of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX. Three-quarters of the victims in the five-hour assault were women and children. It is thought to have been the deadliest gas attack ever carried out against civilians. Dabbagh said in a statement that al-Majid was not subjected to any abuse during the execution, unlike when Saddam Hussein was hanged in December 2006.

Death sentences Al-Majid was first sentenced to hang in June 2007 for his role in the military campaign against ethnic Kurds, which took place between February and August 1988. Josh Rushing, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Irbil, northern Iraq, said: "We've stopped and talked to a number of Kurds, and they are quite happy that Chemical Ali got what he deserved and justice was served." Obituary: Ali Hassan al-Majid executed in Iraq In December 2008, he received another death sentence, this time for his part in crushing a Shia revolt after the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Majid was sentenced to death again in March 2009 for his role in killing and displacing Shia Muslims in 1999, then for a fourth time in January this year for the 1988 gas attack that killed around 5,000 Kurds. Iraq's presidency council approved his execution at the end of February 2008, but legal wrangling held up the execution.

Al-Nasr Dureid, an MP candidate for the Iraqi National Movement, told Al Jazeera: "He was one of the biggest criminals of the previous regime and we had to deal with him sooner or later. "Most Iraqis believe that Ali Hassan al-Majid was a criminal and had to pay for what he did to the Iraqi people. "I dont think that even the most extremist of people in Iraq believe that Ali Hassan al-Majid deserved any mercy of any kind." Rise to power Al-Majid owed his rise in Iraq's government to his cousin and president, Saddam Hussein, who came to trust few beyond his Sunni Muslim clan based around Tikrit, north of Baghdad. He played a key role in the purge of the Baath party in 1979, when Saddam, formally installed as head of state, sat on the stage of an auditorium and watched "traitors" being led away to their deaths after their names were called out. In August 1990, after the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam had appointed him military governor of what was deemed to be Iraq's "19th province", but replaced him three months later for fear his brutal reputation was strengthening the hand of Kuwait's allies.

When a US-led coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991, Saddam appointed al-Majid interior minister to help stamp out the Shia rebellion sweeping southern Iraq. Source: Agencies Ali Hassan al-Majid | Military Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Invasion of Iraq Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (ʿAlī Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī; Arabic language: علي حسن عبد المجيد التكريتي‎; 30 November 1941 [1] – 25 January 2010) was a Ba'athist Iraqi Defense Minister , Interior Minister , military commander and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service . He was also the governor of annexed Kuwait , during the Persian Gulf War . A first cousin of former Ba'athist Iraqi President Saddam Hussein , he became notorious in the 1980s and 1990s for his role in the Iraqi government's campaigns against internal opposition forces, namely the ethnic Kurdish rebels of the north, and the Shia religious dissidents of the south.

Repressive measures included deportations and mass killings; al-Majid was dubbed "Chemical Ali" by Iraqis for his use of chemical weapons in attacks against the Kurds. [2] Al-Majid was captured following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was charged with war crimes , crimes against humanity and genocide. He was convicted in June 2007 and was sentenced to death for crimes of genocide [3] against the Kurds committed in the al-Anfal campaign of the 1980s. His appeal of the death sentence was rejected on 4 September 2007, and he was sentenced to death for the fourth time on 17 January 2010 and was hanged eight days later, on 25 January 2010. [4] Contents Main article: Hussein family Ali Hassan al-Majid is thought to have been born in 1941 in al-Awja near Tikrit, though he claimed in court that he was born three years later in 1944. [5] [6] The U.S. , the United Nations and the Bank of England have also listed an alternative birth year of 1943.

1939 and 1940 have also emerged as possible birth years. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] Still, official Iraqi court documents and the vast majority of journalistic obituaries cite 1941 as his approximate year of birth. He was a member of the Bejat clan of the al-Bu Nasir tribe , to which his elder cousin Saddam Hussein also belonged; Saddam later relied heavily on the clan to fill senior posts in his government. Like Saddam, al-Majid was a Sunni Muslim [12] who came from a poor family and had very little formal education. He worked as a motorcycle messenger and driver in the Iraqi Army until the Ba'ath Party seized power in 1968. [13] His rise thereafter, aided by his cousin Saddam, was swift. He initially became an aide to Iraqi defence minister Hammadi Shihab in the early 1970s after joining the Ba'ath party. [14] He then became head of the government's Security Office, serving as an enforcer for the increasingly powerful Saddam. In 1979 Saddam seized power, pushing aside President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr .

At a videotaped assembly of Ba'ath party officials in July 1979, Saddam read out the names of political opponents, denouncing them as "traitors", and ordering that they be removed one by one from the room; many were later executed. Al-Majid could be seen in the background telling Saddam, "What you have done in the past was good. What you will do in the future is good. But there's this one small point. You have been too gentle, too merciful." [13] Al-Majid became one of Saddam's closest military advisors and head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service , Iraqi secret police known as the Mukhabarat. Following an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Saddam in 1983 in the town of Dujail , north of Baghdad, al-Majid directed the subsequent collective punishment operations in which scores of local men were killed, thousands more inhabitants were deported and the entire town was razed to the ground.

[15] Al-Anfal campaign Main article: Al-Anfal Campaign During the late stages of the Iran–Iraq War al-Majid was given the post of Secretary General of the Northern Bureau of the Ba'ath Party, in which capacity he served from March 1987 to April 1989. This effectively made him Saddam's proconsul in the north of the country, commanding all state agencies in the rebellious Kurdish-populated region of the country. He was known for his ruthlessness, ordering the indiscriminate use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas , sarin , tabun and VX against Kurdish targets during a genocidal [3] campaign dubbed Al-Anfal or "The Spoils of War". The first such attacks occurred as early as April 1987 and continued into 1988, culminating in the notorious attack on Halabja in which over 5,000 people were killed. [15] With Kurdish resistance continuing, al-Majid decided to cripple the rebellion by eradicating the civilian population of the Kurdish regions.

His forces embarked on a systematic campaign of mass killings, property destruction and forced population transfer (called " Arabization ") in which thousands of Kurdish villages were razed and their inhabitants either killed or deported to the south of Iraq. He signed a decree in June 1987 stating that "Within their jurisdiction, the armed forces must kill any human being or animal present in these areas." [16] By 1988, some 4,000 villages had been destroyed, an estimated 180,000 Kurds had been killed and some 1.5 million had been deported. [15] The Kurds called him Chemical Ali ("Ali Kimyawi") for his role in the campaign; according to Iraqi Kurdish sources, Ali Hassan openly boasted of this nickname. [17] Others dubbed him the "Butcher of Kurdistan". [18] Persian Gulf War and Iraq War Edit He was appointed Minister of Local Government following the war's end in 1988, with responsibility for the repopulation of the Kurdish region with Arab settlers relocated from elsewhere in Iraq. Two years later, after the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, he became the military governor of the occupied emirate.

He instituted a violent regime under which Kuwait was systematically looted and purged of "disloyal elements". In November 1990, he was recalled to Baghdad and was appointed Interior Minister in March 1991. Following the Iraqi defeat in the war, he was given the task of quelling the uprisings in the Shi'ite south of Iraq as well as the Kurdish north. Both revolts were crushed with great brutality, with many thousands killed. [15] He was subsequently given the post of Defense Minister, though he briefly fell from grace in 1995 when Saddam dismissed him after it was discovered that al-Majid was involved in illegally smuggling grain to Iran. In December 1998, however, Saddam recalled him and appointed him commander of the southern region of Iraq, where the United States was increasingly carrying out air strikes in the southern no-fly zone . Al-Majid was re-appointed to this post in March 2003, immediately before the start of the Iraq War . [15] He based himself in the southern port city of Basra and in April 2003 he was mistakenly reported to have been killed there in a U.S. air strike .

[13] He survived the April 2003 attack but was arrested by American forces on 17 August 2003. He had been listed as the fifth most-wanted man in Iraq , shown as the King of Spades in the deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards . [19] In 2006 he was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his part in the Anfal campaign and was transferred to the Iraq Special Tribunal for trial. [20] He received four death sentences for his role in killing Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999, the genocide of the Kurds in the 1980s, and ordering the gassing of Kurds at Halabja. [21] Trial and execution Edit The trial began on 21 August 2006, in acrimonious circumstances when al-Majid refused to enter a plea . He subsequently had a not guilty plea entered on his behalf by the court. [22] He was unapologetic about his actions, telling the court that he had ordered the destruction of Kurdish villages because they were "full of Iranian agents".

[23] At one hearing, he declared: "I am the one who gave orders to the army to demolish villages and relocate the villagers. The army was responsible to carry out those orders. I am not defending myself. I am not apologizing. I did not make a mistake." [24] During the trial, the court heard tape-recorded conversations between al-Majid and senior Ba'ath party officials regarding the use of chemical weapons. Responding to a question about the success of the deportation campaign, Ali Hassan told his interlocutors: “ ... I went to Sulaymaniyah and hit them with the special ammunition [i.e. chemical weapons]. That was my answer. We continued the deportations. I told the mustashars [village heads] that they might say that they like their villages and that they won't leave. I said I cannot let your village stay because I will attack it with chemical weapons. Then you and your family will die. You must leave right now. Because I cannot tell you the same day that I am going to attack with chemical weapons. I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them!

The international community and those who listen to them. ... This is my intention, and I want you to take serious note of it. As soon as we complete the deportations, we will start attacking them everywhere according to a systematic military plan. Even their strongholds. In our attacks we will take back one third or one half of what is under their control. If we can try to take two-thirds, then we will surround them in a small pocket and attack them with chemical weapons. I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days. Then I will announce that anyone who wishes to surrender with his gun will be allowed to do so. Anyone willing to come back is welcome, and those who do not return will be attacked again with new, destructive chemicals. I will not mention the name of the chemical because that is classified information. But I will say with new destructive weapons that will destroy you. So I will threaten them and motivate them to surrender. [25] ” During the next few days of the trial, more recordings of al-Majid were heard in which he once again discussed the government's goals in dealing with the Iraqi Kurds.

In the recordings, Ali Hassan calls the Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani "wicked and a pimp," and promises not to leave alive anyone who speaks the Kurdish language. Ali Hassan's defence claimed that he used such language as "psychological and propaganda" tools against the Kurds, to prevent them from fighting government forces. "All the words used by me, such as 'deport them' or 'wipe them out,' were only for psychological effect," Ali Hassan said. On 24 June 2007, the court returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. The presiding judge, Mohamed Oreibi al-Khalifa, told al-Majid: "You had all the civil and military authority for northern Iraq. You gave orders to the troops to kill Kurdish civilians and put them in severe conditions. You subjected them to wide and systematic attacks using chemical weapons and artillery. You led the killing of villagers. You ... committed genocide. There are enough documents against you." [26] He received five death sentences for genocide, crimes against humanity (specifically willful killing, forced disappearances and extermination), and war crimes (intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population).

He was also sentenced to multiple prison terms ranging from seven years to life for other crimes. [27] As his sentences were upheld, under Iraqi law, sentence was to be carried out by hanging, subject to the convictions being upheld following an automatic appeal, and he was to be executed in the following 30 days along with two others – Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Tai , military commander of the Anfal campaign; and Hussein Rashid Mohammed , deputy general commander of the Iraqi armed force, assistant chief of staff for military operations, and former Republican Guard commander. However, the executions were postponed to 16 October, because of the arrival of the holy month of Ramadan. [28] He was supposed to be executed 16 October 2007, but the execution was delayed when Iraqi President Jalal Talabani expressed opposition to the sentences and refused to sign the execution orders. [29] He then entered into a legal row with Nouri al-Maliki , and as a result the Americans refused to hand any of the condemned prisoners over until the issue was resolved.

In February 2008 an anonymous informant stated that Ali Hassan al-Majid's execution was finally approved by Talabani and the two Vice-Presidents; this was the final hurdle in the way of the execution. [30] On 2 December 2008, al-Majid was once again sentenced to death, but this time for playing a role in killing between 20,000 and 100,000 Shi'ite Muslims during the revolt in southern Iraq that followed the 1991 Persian Gulf War. [31] On 2 March 2009, al-Majid was sentenced to death for the third time, this for the assassination of Grand-Ayatollah Mohammad al-Sadr in 1999. [32] The Iraqi Cabinet put pressure on the Presidential council on 17 March 2009 for Al-Majid's execution. [33] The situation was similar on 17 January 2010 prior to 9 am (GMT); a fourth death penalty was issued against him in response to his acts of genocide against Kurds in the 1980s.

He was also convicted of killing Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999. Alongside him in the trial was former defense minister Sultan Hashem, who was also found guilty by The Iraqi High Tribunal for the Halabja attack and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. Al-Majid was executed by hanging on 25 January 2010. He was buried in Saddam's family cemetery in al-Awja the next day; near Saddam's sons, half-brother and the former vice president, but outside the mosque housing the marble tomb of Saddam himself. [34] [35] While he was sentenced to death on four separate occasions, the original 2007 verdict sentenced him to five death sentences, and so the combined tally of death sentences handed out was eight.

[36] Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Director Malcolm Smart later criticized the execution as "only the latest of a mounting number of executions, some of whom did not receive fair trials, in gross violation of human rights..." [37] Sources Iraq Executes 'Chemical Ali' Iraq Executes 'Chemical Ali' Ali Hassan al-Majid on trial in Baghdad in 2007 Share Email to a Friend Print Ali Hassan al-Majid, one of the most notorious members of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's former regime, was executed by hanging today. The announcement was made by Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. Majid, a cousin of the late Saddam Hussein and former Iraqi commander, had been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity. He earned the name "Chemical Ali" for ordering poisonous-gas attacks in a campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s. Majid was the "King of Spades" in the pack of cards of most-wanted Iraqis issued by the U.S. military following the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

U.S.-led forces tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him in April that year with an air strike on a villa in southern Iraq. He eluded them, but was captured in August of that year. Gas Attack Majid is probably best-known for the 1988 Halabjah attack, when Iraqi jets sprayed the mostly Kurdish town with mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin, and VX. It is believed that about 5,000 people died, most of them women and children, in what is thought to be the deadliest-ever gas attack carried out against civilians. The gas attack was part of a military campaign against the Kurds code-named "Anfal" that lasted from February to August of 1988. Majid was convicted in June 2007 for his role in that campaign -- the first of four death sentences. In December 2008, he also received a death sentence for his role in the crushing of a 1991 Shi'ite uprising following the 1991 Gulf War.

Then in March 2009, Majid was sentenced to death for the 1999 killings of Shi'ite Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad and in the central shrine city of Al-Najaf. And on January 17 this year, Majid was sentenced to death for ordering the Halabjah attack. News of his hanging came after three large explosions rocked central Baghdad today, killing at least 36 people and injuring more than 70. It was not immediately clear whether the attacks were linked to Majid's execution. compiled from news agency reports Related Iraq executes Saddam henchman "Chemical Ali" Iraq executes Saddam henchman "Chemical Ali" News Kurd Net does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news information on this page Iraq executes Saddam henchman "Chemical Ali" 25.1.2010 Ali Hassan al-Majid aka "Chemical Ali" or "Butcher of Kurdistan"(R) first cousin of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.

In this image from Iraq TV station Al Iraqiyah TV, which is thought to show the scene moments before the death of Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical ALi, who was hanged Monday Jan. 25, 2010, at an undisclosed location. It is announced Monday that Al-Majid was executed after he received his fourth death sentence for the Halabja poison gas attack in 1988 that killed some 5,000 civilian Kurds and earned him the chilling moniker 'Chemical Ali'. Photo: AP Chemical Ali after execution "Chemical Ali" In one single chemical attack in 1988 on the Kurdish town of Halabja more than 5000 civilian Kurds were killed Saddam's henchman 'Chemical Ali' hanged January 25, 2010 BAGHDAD, ï¿½ Saddam Hussein's notorious henchman "Chemical Ali" was executed on Monday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, a sentence carried out around a week after he received a fourth death sentence.

"The condemned Ali Hassan al-Majid has been executed by hanging until death today," said spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh in a statement. On January 17, Majid was sentenced to death for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the northeastern town of Halabja, one of the worst atrocities of late dictator Saddam Hussein's regime that killed an estimated 5,000 civilian Kurds. Three-quarters of the victims at Halabja were women and children, in what is thought to be the deadliest ever gas attack carried out against civilians. "I want to kiss the hangman's rope," said Kamil Mahmoud, a 40-year-old teacher who lost eight family members in the March 16, 1988, attack in Iraq's Kurdish region. "Chemical Ali was the symbol of crimes and genocide in modern history. Executing him is a lesson to those who do the same .... those who kill their people and use banned weapons," said Saadi Ahmed, a member in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party led by Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani.

The conviction for the gas attack that came as the Iran-Iraq war drew to a close in 1988 was the fourth time that Majid, known by his macabre nickname, has received a death sentence. Handing down the ruling, Judge Abud Mustapha al-Hamani branded Majid's offences as "deliberate murder, a crime against humanity" when the verdict was delivered amid muffled applause in the courtroom. "Al hamdulillah, Al hamdulillah (praise be to God)," said a stone-faced Majid, in a hearing broadcast on television. The only public record of the execution so far are two still photos shown briefly on state TV: one of him wearing red prison coveralls and the other of him on the gallows with a black hood over his head. The mood was far more controlled than the taunting reported at Saddam's hanging in December 2006. Majid's execution had previously been held up by legal wrangling. The first execution was due to have been carried out by October 2007 but delayed so as not to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

A close cousin of Saddam, Majid earned his moniker for ordering poisonous gas attacks in a brutal scorched-earth campaign of bombings and mass deportations that killed an estimated to over 182,000 Kurds in the 1980s. He had already been sentenced to hang for genocide over the Kurdish offensives when in December 2008 he received a second death sentence for war crimes committed during the ill-fated 1991 Shiite uprising in southern Iraq. Last March, the Iraqi High Tribunal handed down a third death sentence over the 1999 murders of dozens of Shiites in the Sadr City district of Baghdad and in the central shrine city of Najaf. Majid was the King of Spades in the pack of cards of most wanted Iraqis issued by the US military in 2003 and was arrested in August of that year. However, he is probably best known for the Halabja attack when in March 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the small town and for five hours sprayed it with a deadly cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX.

Considered Saddam's right-hand man and bearing a strong resemblance to the former dictator, he was a member of the decision-making Revolutionary Command Council and regularly called upon to wipe out rebellion. In March 1987, the ruling Baath party put him in charge of state agencies in the Kurdish area, including the police, army and militias. As Iraq's eight-year war with Iran drew to a close the following year, fighters from the rebel Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, with backing from Tehran, took over the farming community of Halabja, the border. As Saddam's enforcer, he ordered the gas attack to crush the uprising. Majid said he took action against the Kurds, who had sided with Iraq's enemy in the war, for the sake of Iraqi security and has refused to express remorse. The Halabja attack left many of the survivors with long-term medical problems such as permanent blindness, skin burns, respiratory and digestive problems and cancer, said Farman Othman, a doctor in Sulaimaniyah who has treated a number of patients.

Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group, said what set Halabja apart was its "full scale attack on a population center with a weapon of mass destruction." "In terms of proliferation and human rights abuses, this is an order of magnitude different than going into a city and just shooting up the place," said Hiltermann, who is the author of a book on the Halabja attacks. Copyright, respective author or news agency, AFP | AP BBC News - 'Chemical Ali' executed in Iraq after Halabja ruling 'Chemical Ali' executed in Iraq after Halabja ruling Profile: 'Chemical Ali' Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as "Chemical Ali", has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced. Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein's regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to death for ordering the gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. It is believed that about 5,000 people died in the attack.

Iraqi jets swooped over Halabja and for five hours sprayed it with a lethal cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX. Brutality ANALYSIS Jim Muir, BBC Baghdad correspondent For both the Kurds and the Shias, "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid personified the evils of Saddam Hussein's regime almost as much as Saddam himself. His hanging could be seen as helping national reconciliation and the closing of an ugly chapter. But Sunnis, who were empowered under Saddam and among whom many have felt disenfranchised since his overthrow, may see Majid's demise as an act of revenge rather than one of justice. End of a dark chapter Majid was "executed by hanging until death", Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement "The execution happened without any violations, shouting or cries of joy," he added, in sharp contrast to Saddam's death on the gallows in 2006. Iraqi state television, al-Iraqiya, broadcast pictures of what it said was the execution of Majid, although the BBC has not yet confirmed the authenticity of the images. News of the hanging came shortly after three suicide car bombs struck in central Baghdad.

It was not immediately clear whether the attacks were linked to his execution. Majid was first sentenced to hang in June 2007 for his role in a military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Anfal, that lasted from February to August of 1988. In December 2008 he also received a death sentence for his role in crushing a Shia revolt after the 1991 Gulf War. FOUR DEATH SENTENCES Jan 2010: For ordering gas attack on Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 in which 5,000 people died March 2009: For the 1999 killings of Shia Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad Dec 2008: For his role in crushing a Shia revolt after 1991 Gulf War June 2007: For role in six-month military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Anfal, in 1988 In March 2009 he was sentenced to death, along with others, for the 1999 killings of Shia Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad.

The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Majid could have been hanged earlier - after his first death sentence for the Anfal campaign. But it was important to Iraqi Kurds to see him convicted of the Halabja attack, seen as one of the worst atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime. No remorse Our correspondent says there will be great rejoicing or, at the very least, quiet relief among both Iraq's Shia and Kurdish communities, which have suffered greatly at his hands. Iraqi state TV broadcast pictures of what it said was Majid's execution There was a mixed reaction from ordinary Iraqis to news of the execution. "I give my condolences to the Iraqi people on the death of Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was killed by traitors and hooligans," said a resident of Majid's home town, Tikrit. But Baghdad resident Ali Suhail said the execution was just: ''He had executed so many people. So he deserves to be executed." A resident of Halabja also said he was pleased: ''We, the families of those killed in the attack on Halabja, are very pleased to hear that Ali Hassan al-Majid was executed.

"Once again we call upon the Iraqi people and government to be united and serve the Iraqi people and families of those killed in poison gas attack." FROM THE PM PROGRAMME More from PM Majid - the King of Spades in the US military's pack of cards of most-wanted Iraqis - was arrested in August 2003. He has refused to express remorse at any of his trials, insisting that he was acting in the interests of Iraqi security. The Iraqi High Tribunal was set up to try former members of Saddam Hussein's mainly Sunni government and was the same one that sentenced the former president to death. Footage of Saddam's execution in December 2006 was posted on the internet. It showed the dictator being confronted by opponents who jeered and clapped as he was being hanged. Bookmark with: Saddam cousin ‘Chemical Ali’ will hang | New York Post Saddam cousin ‘Chemical Ali’ will hang Modal Trigger Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," for his alleged use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds, was convicted to a fourth death sentence today.

AP A man places flowers on the grave of a victim killed in a 1988 chemical attack in Halabja in northern Iraq. The man behind it, ‘Chemical Ali’ will hang for it. (AP) BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein’s notorious cousin “Chemical Ali” was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging today for ordering the gassing of Kurds in 1988, killing more than 5,000 in the worst such attack ever against civilians. It was Ali Hassan al-Majid fourth death sentence for crimes against humanity in Iraq. The previous three have not been carried out, in part because survivors of the poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja wanted to have their case against al-Majid heard. Relatives of Halabja victims cheered in the courtroom when chief judge Aboud Mustafa handed down the guilty verdict against al-Majid, one of the chief architects of Saddam’s repression and among the last to face trial. Nazik Tawfiq, a 45-year-old Kurdish woman who said she lost six relatives in the attack, fell to her knees to pray upon hearing the verdict. “I am so happy today,” she said.

“Now the souls of our victims will rest in peace.” In Halabja after the verdict, residents cheered and songs played from loudspeakers at a monument commemorating victims of the attack. Some in town visited the cemetery to remember loved ones who died in the gassing. The jubilation demonstrated again the deep-rooted hatred many Iraqis feel toward the former regime. Another senior figure in Saddam’s regime, former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz, suffered a severe stroke over the weekend and cannot speak, his son said Sunday. Aziz was the international face of Saddam’s regime for several years. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for his involvement in the forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq and the deaths of Baghdad merchants in the early 1990s. Al-Majid earned his nickname because of his willingness to use poison gas against the Kurds. The 1988 killings remain a source of deep pain, particularly for Iraq’s Kurds. Many in Halabja still suffer physically from the effects of the nerve and mustard gas that were unleashed on the village at the end of the Iran-Iraq War.

Survivors feel a sense of injustice that Saddam was hanged for the killings of Shiites following a 1982 assassination attempt, but did not live to face justice for the Halabja attack. The gassing of the town was considered the most extensive use of chemical weapons on civilians in history. The court also convicted and sentenced other former officials to jail terms on Sunday for their roles in the Halabja attack. Former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie faces 15 years in prison, as does Iraq’s former director of military intelligence, Sabir Azizi al-Douri. Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri, a former top military intelligence official, was sentenced to 10 years. Evidence against the defendants included eyewitness accounts, official documents and films seized after the fall of Saddam’s regime, and military correspondence among commanders. Al-Majid faces three previous death sentences for atrocities committed during Saddam’s rule — particularly government campaigns against Shiites and Kurds in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was previously sentenced to hang for his role in a brutal crackdown against the Kurds in the late 1980s, known as the Anfal campaign, that killed hundreds of thousands.

The court later issued separate death sentences for his role in the 1991 suppression of a Shiite uprising and for a 1999 crackdown that sought to quell a Shiite backlash to the slaying of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed al-Sadr. The earlier death sentences against al-Majid have not been carried out in part because of a desire by victims of the gas attacks to see him tried for one of the former regime’s most vicious attacks. Another obstacle was a political dispute involving al-Taie, who was also sentenced to death along with Chemical Ali in the Anfal trial. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, have both refused to sign the execution order against al-Taie, who signed the cease-fire with U.S.-led forces that ended the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Taie is a Sunni Arab viewed by many as a respected career soldier who was forced to follow Saddam’s orders in the purges against Kurds. The three-member presidency council must approve all death sentences, and the failure to find agreement on al-Taie delayed the execution of al-Majid as well.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has pushed the presidency council to approve the death sentences pending against al-Majid and al-Taie. Al-Taie surrendered to U.S. forces in September 2003 after weeks of negotiations. His defense has claimed the Americans had promised al-Taie “protection and good treatment” before he turned himself in. Many Sunni Arabs saw his sentence as evidence that Shiite and Kurdish officials are persecuting their once-dominant minority by using their influence over the judiciary. Another reason for the delay is that the Kurds from Halabja have also been pushing to have their day in court with al-Majid. Mohammed Saeed Ali, a Kurdish city official in Halabja, said al-Majid ought to be hanged in Halabja to bring closure to victims’ relatives. “Chemical Ali massacred us and we want to see him getting what he deserves,” he said. Share this:

Question: Hanged in 2010 Ali Hassan al-Majid had what nickname?
Answer: Chemical Ali