Dec 02 2008
Crimes Against Humanity – Two Death Sentences But Only One Life To Give
Chemical Ali’ Hassan al-Majid, who got his nickname from his role in using poison gas against Kurds villages and who is Saddam Hussein’s cousin was sentenced to his second death sentence. His first death sentence was handed down last year for killing tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.
He has now been sentenced to death, by hanging, for war crimes over the crackdown of Shiites during their ill-fated 1991 uprising. As many as 100,000 people were killed as troops carried out massacres around the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and shelled towns and villages across the south in 1991.
Majid was witnessed, tying bricks to the feet of two males and throwing them out of a helicopter; the witness was the mother of the two males. He was also witnessed overseeing the execution of some 200 people in a sports stadium near the southern city of Basra.
Majid has never once denied or expressed remorse for his actions on the Kurds. However he does insist he was not in Basra during the alleged massacre. Knowing where his nickname came from, having witnessed no remorse for his actions in the gassing of Kurds and allowing for the fact that based on these actions he was already sentenced to die for crimes committed ten years earlier, why is he even still in the world to go through the time and expense of another trial based on different charges.
A former Baath party official, Abdul-Ghani Abdul-Ghafur who, in this same trial, was also sentenced to death for his participation in the Shiite uprising and the deaths that took place, shouted to the court “Down with the Persian-U.S. occupation!” He also yelled “Welcome to the death for the sake of Arabism and Islam.” This confirmed that he felt totally justified in his actions of mass homicide.
Al-Majid was one of the most feared members of Saddam’s regime and as his verdict was read he uttered “thanks be to God.” This was also confirmation of his justification for his crimes against humanity. What a grand finale to a homicidal lifestyle.
And that’s the way I see it!!
