Chemical Ali sentenced to hang

Washington Post:

Three senior aides to Saddam Hussein, including the one known as "Chemical Ali," were found guilty of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday and sentenced to death by hanging for their roles in the mass slaughter of as many as 180,000 Kurds in northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

The most infamous of the convicted defendants was Ali Hassan al-Majeed -- commonly known as "Chemical Ali" for ordering the use of deadly mustard gas and nerve agents against the Kurds, who received five death sentences. Ali, 66, was a cousin of Hussein, the former dictator who was executed last year for ordering the killings of 148 men and boys in the town of Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1982.

Hussein originally was a defendant in the case that concluded Sunday, which focused on the so-called Anfal campaign that his regime waged against the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq in 1987 and 1988, and which included the systematic round-up, torture and execution of Kurds and the razing of their towns. Tens of thousands of people continue to bear the physical and emotional scars of the offensive.

The Iraqi government decided to execute Hussein on Dec. 30, immediately after he lost his appeal in the Dujail case, rather than keep him alive to face trial for the Anfal campaign -- "Anfal" is Arabic for "spoils of war" -- and other alleged crimes.

Three other senior Hussein aides also were found guilty and executed in the earlier case.

Some Kurds said after Sunday's hearing, which was nationally televised, that they felt deprived of justice because of the rush to execute Hussein. The government hoped his quick death would allowed Iraqis to begin putting the past behind and start focusing on how to transform the country into a functioning democracy, a struggle that continues with uneven success.

"I wished they had kept Saddam alive and had not executed him until they finish all the trials, so all Iraqis, including Kurds, could feel that they had been repaid for the injustices of his regime," said Saman Mahmood Aziz, 55, a schoolteacher who lost his wife and five children during the Anfal campaign. But, he added, "We feel so happy after seeing the verdict today against Chemical Ali."

...

It is too bad they can't execute Saddam more than once. That is the problem with most hate crime legislation these days. When Democrats and liberals say this war was not worth it, I dare them to say to the face of the people who were the victims of the crimes prosecuted in this trial. All of a sudden the oh so compassionate liberals would seem very uncompassionate.

Gateway Pundit has photos from the chemical attack for which he was tried.