Chemical Ali to Hang for Kurd Slaughter

[Ghost in the Machine]

Chemical Ali to Hang for Kurd Slaughter
Published: 6/24/07, 8:45 PM EDT
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN and OMAR SINAN
BAGHDAD (AP) - Saddam Hussein's cousin, known as "Chemical Ali," and two other regime officials were sentenced Sunday to hang for slaughtering up to 180,000 Kurdish men, women and children with chemical weapons, artillery barrages and mass executions two decades ago.

Two other defendants were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the 1987-1988 crackdown, known as "Operation Anfal." A sixth defendant was acquitted for lack of evidence. Death sentences are automatically appealed.

The most notorious defendant was Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who gained his nickname for ordering the use of mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds in response to their collaboration with the Iranians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.

Witnesses testified that Iraqi government forces indiscriminately attacked women and children, burned crops, killed livestock and rounded up civilians into detention camps in a campaign to exterminate the restive Kurdish minority.

The defendants insisted they were defending the nation against Kurdish guerrillas who had sided with Iran during the bloody eight-year war.

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7405&eeid=5268119&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=-2&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt

[1620rock]

1. Umm, yeah, I wonder where he got the gas from?