One of Saddam Hussein’s most feared lieutenants, known as Chemical Ali for ordering gas attacks on Kurdish villages, will appear in court in Baghdad within days, an Iraqi minister said this week.
According to Hazem Shaalan, the Defence Minister, Ali Hassan al-Majid will be in the dock next week to answer a string of charges for crimes against humanity. ”He will be the first to be tried,” he said.
Some critics have said the announcement of the trial is an effort by Iraq’s interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, to strengthen his credibility ahead of the January 30 elections. Western diplomats said the court appearance was unlikely to be a trial, but rather a preliminary part of the investigative process. It is not clear whether Majid has seen a lawyer since he was arrested last year.
The announcement came as Allawi announced his candidacy for next month’s elections on the first official day of campaigning.
Several hundred candidates have put forward their names, but the elections will take place under the shadow of continued violence. A bomb exploded on Wednesday night at one of the gates to the Imam Hussein shrine in Kerbala, one of the holiest sites in the Shia Muslim faith, killing at least eight people and wounding more than 30. One of the wounded was a senior cleric, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, a representative of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The blast may have been an attempt to assassinate the cleric, and a number of his bodyguards were among the dead and injured, reports said.
As he announced his candidacy, Allawi appeared before a group of supporters, some tribal leaders, some clerics and others in smart suits. He said if elected he would work to remove ”religious and ethnic fanaticism”, and would rebuild the Iraqi security forces to pave the way for a withdrawal of the United States and British military ”according to a set timetable”.
Despite the violence, he clearly hopes the public trial of Majid will show that his interim government has proved itself and begun the difficult reckoning with the brutal legacy of the past 30 years. — Â