Ali Hassan al-Majid
Ali Hassan Majid al-Tikriti (Arabic: علي حسن مجيد التكريت, romanized: ʿAlī Ḥasan Majīd al-Tikrītī; c. 1941[a] – 25 January 2010), nicknamed Chemical Ali (Arabic: علي الكيمياوي, romanized: ʿAlī al-Kīmīawī),[7] was an Iraqi politician and military commander under Saddam Hussein who served as defence minister, interior minister, and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He was also the governor of Kuwait during much of the 1990–91 Gulf War.
Ali Hassan al-Majid
Position abolished
25 January 2010 (aged 68–69)
Camp Justice, Kadhimiya, Baghdad, Iraq
Hisham (brother)
Kamel (brother)
Fatima (sister)
Saddam Hussein (cousin)
Hussein (nephew)
Saddam (nephew)
Hussein Majid (uncle)
Khairallah (brother-in-law)
Hassan Majid
"Chemical Ali"
1959–2003
A first cousin of former Ba'athist Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, al-Majid became notorious in the 1980s and 1990s for his alleged role in the Iraqi government's campaigns against internal opposition forces, namely the ethnic Kurdish rebels of the north, and the Shia rebels of the south. Repressive measures included deportations and mass killings; al-Majid was dubbed "Chemical Ali" (علي الكيماوي, Ali Al-Kīmyāwī) by Iraqis for his use of chemical weapons in attacks against the Kurds.[8]
Al-Majid was captured following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was charged by the Iraqi government with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He was convicted in June 2007 and sentenced to death for crimes of genocide against the Kurds committed in the al-Anfal campaign of the 1980s.[9] His appeal of the death sentence was rejected on 4 September 2007, and he was sentenced to death for the fourth time on 17 January 2010 and was hanged eight days later, on 25 January 2010.[10]
Persian Gulf War and Iraq War[edit]
Al-Majid was appointed Minister of Local Government following the war's end in 1988, with responsibility for the repopulation of the Kurdish and Assyrian region with Arab settlers relocated from elsewhere in Iraq. Two years later, after the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, he became the military governor of the occupied emirate. He instituted a violent regime under which Kuwait was systematically looted and purged of "disloyal elements". In November 1990, he was recalled to Baghdad and was appointed Interior Minister in March 1991. Following the Iraqi defeat in the war, he was given the task of quelling the uprisings in the Shi'ite south of Iraq as well as the Kurdish and Assyrian north. Both revolts were crushed with great brutality, with many thousands killed.[14]
Al-Majid was subsequently given the post of Defense Minister, though he briefly fell from grace in 1995 when Saddam dismissed him after it was discovered that al-Majid was involved in illegally smuggling grain to Iran. In December 1998, however, Saddam recalled him and appointed him commander of the southern region of Iraq, where the United States was increasingly carrying out air strikes in the northern no-fly zone. Al-Majid was re-appointed to this post in March 2003, immediately before the start of the Iraq War.[14] He based himself in the southern port city of Basra and in April 2003 he was mistakenly reported to have been killed there in a U.S. air strike.[12]
Al-Majid survived the April 2003 attack but was arrested by American forces on 17 August 2003 in Basra.[19] He had been listed as the fifth most-wanted man in Iraq, shown as the King of Spades in the deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards.[20] In 2006 he was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his part in the Anfal campaign and was transferred to the Iraq Special Tribunal for trial.[21] He received four death sentences for his role in killing Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999, the genocide of the Kurds in the 1980s, and ordering the gassing of Kurds at Halabja.[22]