Chemical Ali moved to Baghdad in preparation for his execution

Oliver August in Baghdad

The man who carried out Saddam’s order to gas the Kurds was recently transferred from an American detention facility in southern Iraq to a temporary jail at Baghdad airport in anticipation of his execution.

“Chemical Ali”, who earned his grim nickname in Halabja, was sentenced to death in June 2007 for his role in the genocide, and Iraqi newspapers have speculated that he will be hanged before parliamentary elections, expected in the next three months. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has the final say over his fate and may be tempted to exploit the execution for political gain. When he approved the hanging of Saddam three years ago, his political stock rose markedly.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, as he is otherwise known, was held at Camp Bucca along with other high-ranking detainees until the base prison was closed in September. He is now at Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport, where he is guarded by the US military under an agreement with the Iraqi Government. Reports of encounters with him in detention echo the description of Nazi figures put on trial, recalling the phrase “banality of evil” coined by Hannah Arendt at the Eichmann trial.

Army Sergeant Jason Sparlin told his hometown newspaper last week after returning from Iraq: “I actually met Chemical Ali. I didn’t know it was him until after he left. He was playing chess with some private. After he left, they told me who he was. It was strange, because he was so nice and well spoken — and he was good at chess.” Chemical Ali is a first cousin of Saddam and was chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service and Defence Minister as well as governor of occupied Kuwait during the Gulf War.

When he was tried, the court heard a tape of a conversation he had had at the time with another official during which he said: “I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? F*** them!”