Region | Iraq
Iraqi government wants to execute three Saddam aides together
The Iraqi government wants to execute three aides of former president Saddam Hussein together, including his cousin "Chemical Ali",Iraqi media reported on Wednesday.
- Agencies
- Published: 14:40 March 19, 2008
- Ali Hassan Al-Majid, otherwise known as Chemical Ali is one of the three men the Iraq government wishes to execute
- Image Credit: Gulf News archive
Baghdad: The Iraqi government wants to execute three aides of former president Saddam Hussein together, including his cousin "Chemical Ali", Iraqi media reported on Wednesday.
Ali Hassan Al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali, along with former defence minister Sultan Hashim and former army chief of operations, Hussein Al-Tikriti, were all sentenced to death in June for a genocide campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s.
Al-Majid earned the name Chemical Ali for gassing the Kurds in the brutal crackdown.
The row over the planned executions pits prime minister Nuri Al-Maliki against the presidential council, which has vetoed the executions of Hashim and Al-Tikriti.
Hashim and Al-Tikriti are regarded by many Sunni Arabs as career soldiers who were just following orders.
Sunni vice-president Tarqi Al-Hashimi has launched a campaign to spare Hashim, who along with the two other Saddam-era officials are in US custody.
The US military is refusing to hand the three over to the Iraqi authorities before the legal wrangling is resolved.
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