Saddam officials charged for suppressing Shiite uprising after Gulf War News
Saddam officials charged for suppressing Shiite uprising after Gulf War

[JURIST] More than a hundred officials of Saddam Hussein's regime have been charged for their roles in quelling the Shiite uprising [HRW report] following the 1990-91 Gulf War that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Shiites, according to Iraqi High Tribunal prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi [JURIST news archive]. Among the 102 individuals expected to stand trial are Saddam's half brothers Watban, Ibrahim and Sabawi, the former president's secretary Abed Hmoud, former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan [Trial Watch profile], and former Defense Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid. Saddam's former deputy Izzat Ibrahim and former senior Baath party official Mohammed Younis al-Ahmed, currently fugitives, will stand trial in absentia. Charges against Hussein and former Prime Minister Mohammed Hamza al-Zubaidi, both now deceased, are expected to be dropped.

The trial will be the third involving Saddam-era officials. The first was the Dujail case [BBC timeline] involving crimes against humanity committed in that Iraqi town in 1982, which resulted in the hangings of Hussein and two of his co-defendants, with the likely hanging of a third pending. The second trial, still continuing, is a genocide case arising from the Anfal campaigns [HRW backgrounder] that killing over 100,000 Kurds in the late 1980s. AP has more.