IRAQ: 'CHEMICAL ALI' EXECUTED

Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, was executed in Iraq for crimes against humanity, a government spokesman said.
Al-Majid - nicknamed "Chemical Ali" by the Western media - was sentenced to death last week for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the Iraqi village of Halabja. "The condemned Ali Hassan al-Majid has been executed by hanging until death today," spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. In March 1988, Iraqi jets swooped over the village of Halabja and sprayed it with a deadly mix of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin and VX.
Three-quarters of the victims in the five-hour assault were women and children. It is thought to have been the deadliest gas attack ever carried out against civilians. It is believed that about 5,000 people died in the attack. Majid was sentenced to hang in June 2007 for his role in a military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Anfal, that lasted from February to August of 1988. In December 2008 he also received a death sentence for his role in crushing a Shia revolt after the 1991 Gulf War. In March 2009 he was sentenced to death, along with others, for the 1999 killings of Shia Muslims in the Sadr City district of Baghdad.