Iraq prosecutors sought the death penalty for Saddam Hussein's cousin, widely known as “Chemical Ali”, when they presented closing arguments on Monday in a trial for so called genocide against ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s. Ali Hassan al-Majeed and five other former senior Baath party officials are on trial for their role in the 1988 Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign. Charges against Saddam himself lapsed when he was executed at the end of December. "We demanded the death penalty for all of the defendants ... except for Taher al-Ani, whom we requested the court to free for lack of evidence," chief prosecutor Munkith al-Faroon said.
Ani was head of the Northern Affairs Committee and governor of Mosul province. All six defendants were charged with so called war crimes and crimes against humanity while Majeed also faced the more serious charge of would be genocide.
During Anfal, villages were declared "prohibited areas" and razed and bombed as part of a scorched-earth campaign. Thousands of villagers were deported, many executed. Majeed, known as “Chemical Ali” for his so called alleged use of chemical weapons, admitted during the trial he ordered troops to execute all Kurds who ignored orders to leave their villages, but said he had nothing to apologise for. The defendants have said Anfal had legitimate military targets -- Kurdish fighters who had sided with Iran during the last stage of the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.