Afternoon:
15°c
Chemical Ali and Saddam deputy jailed for 42 deaths
Amar Singh11.03.09
Saddam Hussein's former henchmen were today jailed for 15 years for crimes against humanity.
Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz was convicted with former defence minister Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed "Chemical Ali," and six others, for their involvement in the execution of 42 merchants in 1992.
Aziz, 73, who turned himself in to US forces in April 2003 after Saddam's regime was overthrown, could have been given the death penalty. It was Aziz's first conviction in the Iraqi high tribunal process. He has been suffering from ill health while awaiting trial in prison.
But Majid, a half brother of Saddam, was this month given his third death sentence over the murder of Shia Muslims 10 years ago. Aziz, 73, was acquitted of the same charges.
A number of senior regime figures signed the death warrants of the flour traders who had been accused of speculating on food prices when the country was under UN sanctions imposed after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Majid was first sentenced to death in June 2007 for genocide after ordering the deaths of tens of thousands of Kurds during the 1988 Anfal campaign, when Iraqi forces strafed villages with poison gas, the source of his grim nickname. He was also given a second death penalty for war crimes and crimes against humanity over a bloody crackdown on Shias during their unsuccessful uprising after the 1991 Gulf War. Two of Saddam Hussein's half-brothers, former presidential adviser Watban Ibrahim and former intelligence chief Sabawi Ibrahim, were sentenced to death by hanging.
Two other Iraqi officials were jailed for six and 15 years, while a former governor of the Iraqi central bank was acquitted.
