E-Paper
Verdict against 'Chemical Ali' due tomorrow
He faces a charge of genocide, while five others are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Iraqi High Tribunal is set to give its verdict on Sunday, on six former aides of Saddam Hussein accused of slaughtering 182,000 Kurdish villagers during a 1988 military campaign in northern Iraq.
Ahead of the judgement, the defence team appealed to United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon to stop the trial which it said was marred by "errors".
The most prominent defendant is Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam who is widely known as "Chemical Ali" for allegedly ordering the killing of tens of thousands of Kurdish villagers with chemical gas strikes.
He faces a charge of genocide, while the five others in the dock are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity, all charges that carry the death penalty.
They include Sabir al-Dur, former director of military intelligence; Sultan Hashim al-Tai, a former defence minister;
Husein Rashid al-Tikriti, former armed forces deputy chief of operations; Farhan al-Juburi, a former military intelligence commander; and Taher al-Ani, former gvernor of the main northern city of Mosul.
Majid is the only individual beside Saddam to be charged with genocide over the so-called Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s.
Saddam, ousted from power by US-led invasion forces in April 2003, was executed on December 30 for crimes against humanity in a separate case.
All six former regime officials are accused of masterminding the slaughter of 182,000 Kurdish villagers in Iraq's northern Kurdish region in 1988, when the Iran-Iraq war was at its peak.
