An Iraqi court Tuesday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid to death for atrocities committed against Shiites who staged an uprising in 1991 following the U.S.-led liberation of Kuwait.
Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his gassing of the Kurdish population in the Anfal campaign, responded to a Shiite uprising in the south of Iraq that brought rebels within 60-miles of the capital, Baghdad.
Then U.S. President George H.W. Bush had encouraged the Iraqis to “take matters into their own hands” and “force Saddam Hussein to step aside” following the first Gulf War.
The Shiites in the south said they had expected U.S. backing in the rebellion, the Shaaban Intifada, but American troops withdrew, leaving Saddam to put down the uprising.
Majid received a death sentence earlier for crimes committed during the Anfal campaign. The Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq held a ceremony in November for victims of the operation. U.S. forces had protected three Kurdish provinces in the wake of the Shiite uprising.
The three-member Iraqi presidency council in February said it had removed a blockade on the execution of Majid, saying he would be hanged in a “matter of days.”
He reportedly suffered a heart attack in April while in U.S. custody.
