Iraqi Court Sentences Chemical Ali To Death

December 2, 2008 8:49 a.m. EST

Baghdad, Iraq (AHN) - A special Iraqi court has sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid to death, who is known in Iraq as "Chemical Ali" for his role in the poison gas attacks that killed thousands of Kurdish villagers in Iraq's northern uplands in the late 1980s.

The court found al-Majid, a cousin of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, guilty for the deaths and suppression of a Shiite uprising in 1991.

This was the second death sentence for al-Majid, the first was for the death of thousands of Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq.

Al-Majid, who is in his early 60s and weakened by diabetes, leaned heavily on a walking stick as the judge read the guilty verdicts on counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He did not offer any resistance when the judge ordered the bailiff to return him to his cell.

His co-defendant, former Baath party official Abdul-Ghani Abdul-Ghafur was also meted the death sentence Tuesday at the end of the trial that began in August 2007.