Iraq council approves "Chemical Ali" hanging

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The last legal hurdle to thelong-delayed execution of "Chemical Ali", a cousin of SaddamHussein and once one of the most feared men in Iraq, has beenremoved, Iraqi officials said on Friday.

Iraq's presidency council, made up of President JalalTalabani and the two vice-presidents, has given the go-aheadfor Ali Hassan al-Majeed to be hanged, they said, although nodate has been set for his execution.

"They approved it two days ago," a source at the presidencycouncil told Reuters, without explaining why the decision hadbeen kept secret.

Majeed's reputation for ruthless use of force to crushopponents won him widespread notoriety during Saddam's rule andled many Iraqis to fear him more than the Iraqi leader himself.

Asked when Majeed would be hanged, an adviser to PrimeMinister Nuri al-Maliki said: "It will be a matter of days."

The two officials said it would be up to Maliki'sgovernment to set a date for the execution.

The U.S. military, which has custody of Majeed and otherformer members of Saddam's government, said it had not receiveda request to hand him over to the Iraqi authorities, whichwould signal that his execution was imminent.

Majeed, Saddam's former defence minister, Sultan Hashem,and a former army commander, Hussein Rashid Muhammed, weresentenced to death last June for a genocidal campaign againstIraq's Kurds in the 1980s that killed tens of thousands ofpeople.

Saddam's execution in December 2006 sparked anger amongSunni Arabs, who were outraged by a video showing the oustedleader being hanged to sectarian taunts from officialobservers.

His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was executed twoweeks later in a botched hanging in which he was decapitated.

AT ODDS WITH MALIKI

Majeed's death sentence was widely cheered by Iraqis, butTalabani and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab,opposed the execution of his co-accused, arguing military menshould not suffer such a punishment for following orders fromtheir political masters.

That put them at odds with Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist whosefellow Shi'ites suffered terribly under Saddam's minority SunniArab rule. He wanted the executions to be swiftly carried out.

Government officials argued the presidency council'sapproval was not even required, but U.S. forces refused to handover the prisoners until the dispute was resolved.

The legal wrangle held up the execution of all three, whowere due to have gone to the gallows within days of an Iraqiappeals court upholding their death sentences last September.

But a compromise solution now appears to have been workedout to go ahead with the execution of Majeed while the disputeover his two co-accused is left to another day to be settled.

An official in Hashemi's media office said the vicepresident had received the three death sentences from the IraqiHigh Tribunal 10 days ago. He had approved Majeed's butobjected to the other two.

"There are different points of view regarding the othersthat need to be resolved," said the presidency council source.

Majeed was convicted of directing the Anfal militarycampaign in 1988 which prosecutors said killed up to 180,000Kurds. His hanging has long been sought by Kurds.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny and Ahmed Rasheed, writing byRoss Colvin, editing by Janet Lawrence)