Iraqi High Tribunal announces second Saddam trial

The Iraqi High Tribunal today announced that Saddam Hussein and six co-defendants will be put on trial on August 21 for the 1980s Anfal campaign in which an estimated 100,000 Kurds were killed in northern Iraq.

Charges in the case were announced in April and involve Saddam’s alleged role in Operation Anfal, Arabic for “spoils of war”, which was launched to crush independence-minded Kurdish militias and clear the Kurdish population sensitive Iranian border area.

Saddam had accused Kurdish militias of ties to Iran. Thousands of Kurdish villages were razed and their inhabitants either killed or displaced.

A memo released by the tribunal in April said the Anfal campaign included “savage military attacks on civilians,” including “the use of mustard gas and nerve agents … to kill and maim rural villagers and to drive them out of their homes”.

Others accused in the Anfal case include Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hassan Majid, or “Chemical Ali”; former Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmad; former intelligence chief Saber Abdul Aziz al-Douri; former Republican Guard commander Hussein al-Tikriti; former Nineveh provincial Gov. Taher Tafwiq al-Ani; and former top military commander Farhan Mutlaq al-Jubouri.