Giovanni Di Stefano [lawyer for Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed "Chemical Ali", Studio Legale Internazionale, Rome]: "The 'delay' on the execution of Al majid et al is de facto a stay. As I had stated in my parere pro veritate, the Iraqi Government are precluded by religious law to execute anyone during Ramadan. Iraqi law supposedly requires executions to take place 'within 30 days from final sentence' namely, any appeal court decision. In the case of Al Majid de jure he and his two co-defendants sentenced to death simply cannot be executed.

However, the strategy of the Iraqi government is to permit him to proceed with the current trial upon which he is one of 14 indicted and sentence him to death for those offences. It is irrelevant whether or not he is guilty or innocent since the Iraqi High tribunal is not a fact finding court. It is a court that simply upholds the wishes of the Iraqi Government, the very offence upon which Saddam Hussein and Awwad Al bander (Chief Judge of the Revolutionary Court and both my clients) were convicted and executed! Mr Al Majid et al is not guilty of even 5% of the accusations involving use of chemicals. He is the victim of a media campaign that insisted on allocating 'nicknames' that would identify indictees with certain offences. One wonders if 'Comical Ali' had been indicted (he would have were he not of the Shia Religion) what his charges would have been? All in all the current trial process sees 14 Defendants without lawyers of their choice wholly contrary to the Statute of the Iraqi High Tribunal (Art.20). It can thus not qualify in any shape or form as a 'trial' per se but a theatre of absurdities and farce."