Hussein to Face Genocide Charges in Anfal Trial

Saddam Hussein and six high-ranking members of his regime will be indicted on charges of genocide this summer in the mass killings of Iraqi Kurds during a seven-month operation in 1988, the court trying the former Iraqi president announced Tuesday.

The defendants, including Hussein’s cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, also known as Chemical Ali because of his alleged role in gas attacks on the Kurds, are scheduled to appear before the court Aug. 21.

“We will hear the reading of the accusations against the defendants, some testimony and other procedural matters,” said Jaafar Mousawi, a prosecutor serving in the Iraqi High Tribunal.

Iraq’s minority Kurds, who inhabit the northern portion of the country, have long sought justice for the Anfal campaign, in which at least 2,000 villages were destroyed and tens of thousands of people were arrested, deported, tortured and killed, often in remote desert camps.

Anfal, which means “the spoils,” is taken from a Koranic verse calling for the striking of fear in nonbelievers. Iraqis use the term to refer to the campaign between Feb. 23 and Sept. 6, 1988, when an entire swath of the Kurdish population was eradicated. The Iraqi army used mustard gas and nerve agents to wipe out Kurdish villages during that period.

The announcement of the Anfal trial came as a current trial of Hussein and seven others winds down. The former Iraqi leader and his codefendants are being tried in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslim residents from the town of Dujayl in 1982. Final defense arguments in the case are scheduled for July 10, and a verdict is expected in September. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Hussein and at least two other defendants in the case.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has said that Hussein will be tried for all his alleged crimes before any of the sentences are carried out. Under Iraqi criminal law, the second trial will begin with a detailed indictment of the charges against the former Iraqi military commanders, including Hussein.

Besides the former president, the best known of those who will go on trial in August is Majid, who is accused of playing a leading role in the Anfal killings.

He has been accused of directing a gas attack against the Kurdish village of Halabja in March 1988, killing an estimated 5,000 people. The alleged perpetrators will be tried separately, even though that attack took place in the same period as Anfal.

The other five defendants in the Anfal case were identified by the Associated Press as former Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad Jabburi Tai; former intelligence chief Sabir Abdel-Aziz Douri; former Republican Guard commander Hussein Tikriti; former Nineveh provincial Gov. Taher Tawfiq Ani; and former top military commander Farhan Mutlaq Jubouri.

Many of the Anfal victims are believed to have been buried in mass graves. Those burial sites are being systematically investigated and the findings are expected to be presented as evidence at the trial.