The chief prosecutor in the Iraqi High Tribunal examining the death of 180,000 in Iraqi Kurdistan from chemical weapons attacks said the death sentences against three former ministers should proceed. Munqith al-Faroon rejected the arguments that one minister, Sultan Hashim al-Tai, should be pardoned because he was only following orders.
Al-Tai negotiated the cease-fire in the first Gulf War and surrendered to U.S. forces after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Iraqi High Tribunal sentenced him and two others to hang for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in "Operation ANFAL," a chemical weapons attack in northern Iraqi Kurdistan.
There is reluctance to carry out the sentence because al-Tai is a well respected former officer and the tribunal's sentence lacked the presidential sign-off as mandated by the constitution.
Al-Faroon said in a television interview Friday that al-Tai's defense that he was only following orders out of fear for his life was not a valid defense. This defense was refuted during the Nuremberg trials as an inexcusable justification of such grave moral violations. “The convict Sultan Hashim confessed before the court that it was he who drew the plan for the ANFAL,” al-Faroon said. “I say that a noble officer must say ‘no’ to orders issued to him to kill his own people,” al-Faroon continued.
A further dispute involves the presidential authorization of the penalties. President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, claims the authority to block the executions, though previous death sentences were carried out without the decree. Al-Faroon says the presidential authority to block executions does not exist in trials regarding crimes against humanity, genocide, or war crimes.
Officials stated previously they may only seek the execution of Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” in the ANFAL case.
