 | I'd guess he's toast if that happens. Ramsey Clark must be taking the gas pipe... |
Ali Hassan al-Majid, a jailed cousin of Saddam Hussein, will be tried in Halabja, at the scene of the crime that earned him the sinister nickname of 'Chemical Ali', Iraq's deputy prime minister vowed on Saturday. Speaking to Kurdish families whose relatives were gassed here in 1988, Barham Saleh said: "We will bring you Chemical Ali, so that he can be tried in front of the families of the victims of the gassing." "The representatives of the Halabja victims should ask the next government to allocate part of the Iraqi budget to the reconstruction of the town, in order to allow its inhabitants to erase the scars of the gassing," he said.
On March 16, 1988, the forces of the then President Saddam Hussein dropped chemical gas on Halabja, killing up to 5,000 peole, as part of a campaign to crush a Kurdish rebellion. The cases of Chemical Ali and former defence minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed from the toppled regime were the first to be heard before the special Iraqi tribunal last month. |