Chemical Ali Sentenced to Death

Bad news for Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid—aka, “Chemical Ali”: He’s just received another death sentence. Al-Majid avoided his first death sentence, for murdering tens of thousands in the Kurds with chemical weapons in the 1980s, with legal wrangling. The crime this time is his brutal suppression of a Shiite uprising after the first Gulf War. After that war, a Shiite and Kurdish uprising captured 14 of the country’s 18 provinces, but tens of thousands of people died as the Baath Party took them back over. Another defendant was sentenced to death in the trial, while four were given life sentences, six were sentenced to 15 years in prison, and three were acquitted.