'Chemical Ali' on Trial for Brutal Crushing of Shia Uprising

Ali Hassan al-Majid, the notorious "Chemical Ali", faced charges of crimes against humanity yesterday at the start of his trial for crushing the Iraqi Shia rebellion at the end of the 1991 Gulf war.

Majid, a first cousin of Saddam Hussein, was the most prominent of 15 of the executed dictator's closest aides and henchmen in the dock in Baghdad. He and three of the other defendants have already been sentenced to death in another case.

The Iraqi high tribunal said the 15, also including Saddam's former personal secretary and defence minister, were facing the gallows for alleged systematic attacks against civilians. Iraq's southern Shia Muslims were encouraged to rebel after US-led coalition forces liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupation but failed to follow it up with regime change in Baghdad. An estimated 100,000 died in what became known as the Shia "intifada" or uprising.

Majid, who got his nickname (and existing death sentence) from ordering gas attacks on Kurdish towns during the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s, reportedly sat subdued for most of the session, standing once to question the first witness.

The chief judge, Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, said the men were charged with crimes against humanity, which officials said included murder, torture, persecution and random detentions. They said the evidence includes tapes and after-action reports but few actual orders because of a regime-ordered destruction of records.

In March 1991, Shia in the south and Kurds in the north - both repressed under Saddam's Sunni-dominated Ba'athist regime - sought to take advantage of the defeat, seizing control of 14 of the country's 18 provinces, with dramatic successes in Najaf, Karbala and Basra. US troops created a safe haven for the Kurds in three northern provinces, preventing Saddam from attacking. But Iraqi forces were allowed to use helicopters and tanks in the south and crushed the uprising.

The then US president, George Bush senior, had called on Iraqis to oust the dictator but explained later that he did not want the Iraqi state to break up and feared the collapse of the coalition he had assembled, which included Arab states.

"The acts committed against the Iraqi people in 1991 by the security forces and by the defendants were among one of the ugliest crimes ever committed against humanity in modern history," said prosecutor Mahdi Abdul-Amir.

"Majid used to come to detention centers, tie the hands of the detainees and then shoot them dead. The dead were later buried in mass graves," he said. "Many mass graves have been found since the 2003 war ended. And we will find many more if we keep searching."

Sabir al-Douri, former director of military intelligence, told the judge he was in Baghdad during the uprising and did not visit the south during this period. Sabawi Ibrahim, one of Saddam's half-brothers and head of the feared Mukhabarat intelligence agency at the time, defended the regime's invasion of Kuwait as Iraq's "historic right" and said the court was illegal because it was backed by the US.

It was the third trial of former regime officials after the Dujail case, in which Saddam and three others were hanged for the 1982 killings of 148 Shia, and the trial of those accused of taking part in the Anfal campaign. Unlike the two previous trials, yesterday's hearing was not televised.

The new trial came as Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, came under increasing pressure over the political situation in the country. President George Bush admitted last night that there was "frustration" with Mr Maliki's government, but said it was up to the Iraqi people to decide whether to continue supporting him. Washington has complained of insufficient progress towards political reconciliation, which is necessary to allow the US to pull out.