'Chemical Ali' sentenced to hang

[Malcolm]

? Iraqi court sentences "Chemical Ali" to death by hanging
? Ali Hassan al-Majid sentenced for role in deaths of 180,000 Kurds
? Two other former Saddam Hussein officials also sentenced to death

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An Iraq court on Sunday sentenced three former aides to Saddam Hussein, including the man known as "Chemical Ali," to death by hanging for their role in a 1980s genocide campaign that that killed up to 100,000 Kurds.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, Hussein's first cousin, earned his nickname for atrocities committed in a military campaign code-named Operation Anfal during the 1980-88 Iraq-Iran war.

In the scorched earth attacks, poisonous gas and chemicals were used against the Kurds.

Also sentenced to death was Sultan Hashem Ahmed, Iraqi army commander during the war with Iran. In 1988, he was named chief-in-charge of the Anfal operation.

The third defendant to hang is Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy general commander of the Iraqi armed force, assistant chief of staff for military operations, and former Republican Guard commander.

Life sentences were give to Farhan Jubouri -- former head of military intelligence in northern Iraq -- and Saber Abdel Aziz al-Douri -- director of military intelligence during the Anfal campaign and a one-time mayor of Baghdad.

A sixth defendant -- the former governor of the region where the gas attacks occurred -- was cleared on all charges. Chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon had requested that Taher Tawfiq al-Ani be acquitted because of lack of evidence.

Hussein was also a defendant in the Anfal trial, but was hanged late last year after being convicted in a separate trial. The Anfal trial began August 21, 2006. Hussein, who also was charged with genocide, was ousted from power after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He was executed December 30 after his conviction in the 1982 killings in the Shiite town of Dujail.

The Anfal trial resumed a week after Hussein's hanging.

Another trial, yet to begin, is for genocide and crimes against humanity for the brutal suppression of an uprising of the Shiites in the south after the first Gulf War, known by Shiites as the Shaabaniyah uprising because it happened during the Islamic month of Shaaban.

[Dr. Blutarsky]

He's actually getting off easy for killing 180,000 people.

[Drew]

He's actually getting off easy for killing 180,000 people.

Real easy.

[Kady.52]

Yeah, but you can see why they're killing them off. with the political climate in Iraq being what it is, another few months might see the release of these people to be returned to power or at least transported to a different country. It's better to kill them now than take any risks. Even if they were jailed, they'd only find some way of escaping/committing suicide or having a pretty comfortable time, and they'd be out in 20 years.

[The Dog]

Yeah, but you can see why they're killing them off. with the political climate in Iraq being what it is, another few months might see the release of these people to be returned to power or at least transported to a different country. It's better to kill them now than take any risks. Even if they were jailed, they'd only find some way of escaping/committing suicide or having a pretty comfortable time, and they'd be out in 20 years.

agreed - these fucks should just be purged from the face of the earth. 

good riddance to this guy.

[Kady.52]

 

you think George Bush has that mobile clip of saddam hanging as his mobile wallpaper...

[Izzy]

He's actually getting off easy for killing 180,000 people.

 

...so if he kills people thats wrong, but if a scapegoat tried in a kangaroo court in an illegally occupied country is sentenced to death - hell, thats great, no dubious morality there!

[The Dog]

He's actually getting off easy for killing 180,000 people.

 

...so if he kills people thats wrong, but if a scapegoat tried in a kangaroo court in an illegally occupied country is sentenced to death - hell, thats great, no dubious morality there!

yeah, lets feel bad for Hussein. 

give me a break Izzy.  all of these assholes deserve to rot.

you should be tried and sentenced for saying transformers is going to be a good movie!!!   

[polluxlm]

The people responsible for killing 500.000 children through the blockade are next then?


Guess not.

[The Dog]

The people responsible for killing 500.000 children through the blockade are next then?


Guess not.

Why was there a blockade in the first place?

[Mal Brossard]

Why hanging?  Why not beheading with an olive fork?  Or boiling in oil?  Catapult right into a brick wall?  Small tactical nuclear device in his ass?  Toss him off the Empire State Building and whoever he lands on wins the Publisher's Clearing House?

[polluxlm]

The people responsible for killing 500.000 children through the blockade are next then?


Guess not.

Why was there a blockade in the first place?

Well, they were a natural reaction to the atrocities commited by Iraqi soldiers towards Kuwait.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Americans were appalled by reports of at least 312 babies ripped from their life support systems by marauding Iraqi troops. More than any other story, it helped sway public opinion in favor of the war. When the Senate narrowly decided by five votes to authorize an invasion, nine senators referred to these atrocities as a reason for their votes.

Who could not have been moved by the testimony of a 15 year-old Kuwaiti girl known only as "Nayirah," before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus as she described the babies she'd seen who'd been "left on the cold floor to die" by indifferent soldiers looting a hospital?

At the time, neither Congress nor the public knew she was actually the daughter of Kuwait's ambassador to the U.S., Saud al-Sabah, and had never been near these hospitals. Nor did the public know this "testimony" had been "facilitated" by a PR firm named Hill and Knowlton and financed by the government of Kuwait. These facts came out after the war, when hospital employees in Kuwait universally denied this atrocity story. But the tale had done its damage.


Then you have this nice piece of cynicism

CBS reporter Lesley Stahl had a chance to interview our soon-to-be Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 1996 about this sensitive issue on 60 Minutes. Asked Stahl: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And - and you know, is the price worth it?"

To this Albright responded, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it."


You know, punishing an entire population for the actions of one leader just seems so, you know, humanitarian and democratic, and so worth it.

I'd like to see the people behind this blockade on trial for crimes against humanity, but I guess 'chemical ali' will have to do.

[fuckin crazy]

I'm against capital punishment , but if anyone deserves it , it is him .   

[COMAMOTIVE]

I did'nt realize he was still alive. Should have taken out this trash, the same day as Sadamm