BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government said on Tuesday it wanted to execute together three former aides of Saddam Hussein, including “Chemical Ali,” who face the gallows for a genocidal campaign against Kurds.Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as Chemical Ali, was sentenced to death last June for genocide, along with former defence minister Sultan Hashim al-Tai and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, once armed forces deputy chief of operations. The three were convicted of overseeing a brutal military campaign known as Anfal against Kurdish villagers in 1988 that left 180,000 people dead, and of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“The Iraqi cabinet calls for the three Saddam aides to be executed together at one time in order to implement the sentence issued by the court against them,” a cabinet statement said.
The executions have been delayed by legal wranglings. On February 29, IraqÂ’s three-member presidency endorsed the execution of Majid, but gave no information about the fate of the other two men. Under Iraqi law the three men should have been executed by October 4 last year, 30 days after the sentences were upheld by the Supreme Court. But Iraq decided to postpone them until after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, because of the outcry over SaddamÂ’s hanging during another Muslim holiday in December 2006. The hangings were further put off because President Jalal Talabani and his Sunni deputy, Tareq al-Hashemi, refused to sign the three execution orders.
The three men are in the custody of the US military, which has refused to hand them over to the Iraqi authorities unless the legal hitches are resolved.
A source close to the Iraqi High Tribunal, which sentenced the three, said the executions were delayed because the US authorities were under pressure from Hashemi. “Hashemi is the obstacle in the executions,” he said, adding that the Sunni leader and the US authorities believe the three executions could trigger fresh chaos in the country. “We don’t understand how it can trigger chaos. None of them is like Saddam.”
He said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was determined to carry out the hangings. “The prime minister just wants to implement the sentences as per law."
He said the legal advisors of the government said it no longer had to adhere to the 30 days period. “That deadline was only for the first time. We have already passed that deadline,” he added.