Parvin Vahedi, a Kurdish chemical gas victim. Credit: Anuj Chopra, ISN Security Watch

Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official and cousin of Saddam Hussein, was sentenced by an Iraqi court on Sunday to hang for ordering the gas attack on the Kurdish Town of Halabja that killed more than 5000 people. This is the fourth death sentence against al-Majid for crimes against humanity, The Associated Press reported.

The sentence, The Associated Press claimed, is a reminder that the victims of Hussein’s tyrannical regime are still determined to seek justice, while “some politicians stoke the lingering bitterness toward the old Sunni-led regime to cement the Shiite domination that supplanted it.”

On 16 March 1988, al-Majid sent out Iraqi jets that sprayed the town with chemical gasses such as Mustard gas and Tabun, Sarin and VX, reported the BBC; most of the casualties were women and children. Al-Majid’s use of poison gas during the Kurdish genocide earned him the nickname “Chemical Ali” among the Kurds. Al Jazeera said the attacks were “thought to have been the deadliest gas attack ever carried out against civilians”, while The Times characterised it as “the single biggest deliberate gassing of civilians since the Second World War.”

The attack was part of the larger Anfal campaign during the 1980’s that claimed the lives of 182,000 Kurds and destroyed 4,000 villages, reported Al Jazeera.

“I am so happy,” Nazik Tawfiq, 45, a Kurd who lost six relatives in the attack, told The Times. “Now the souls of our victims will rest in peace.” Relatives of the Halabja victims cheered when the verdict was read.

The BBC‘s Jim Muir, reporting from Baghdad said, “For Kurds, Halabja is the single most traumatic atrocity they suffered during Saddam Hussein’s long campaign against them in the 1980s and they had wanted Majid to face justice for it.”

In addition to being Hussein’s cousin, al-Majid served as the dictator’s Defense Minister, Interior Minister, Intelligence Chief and Governor of occupied Kuwait, reported The Times. Reuters said his ruthless reputation in crushing Saddam’s opponents won him widespread notoriety and many Iraqis feared him more than the leader himself.

“Chemical Ali” was captured by the American troops in August 2003. He has been sentenced three times to die for the killing of Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999, and for genocide against the Kurds in the 1980’s.