Ali Hassan al-Majid

Iraq's U.S.-backed government had promised trials would begin before next month's election, the first free vote since Saddam rose to power three decades ago. But the judge stressed his meetings with Ali Hassan al-Majid and the former Defense Minister Sultan Hashem were just the start of a long process.

Pictures released by investigating magistrates at a news conference showed the two once widely feared officials being hauled into the dock in chains.

Chief Magistrate Rayed Juhi said that both defendants had legal representation at the hearing, the first since Saddam and the other 11 former officials in custody were formally charged in July.

Majid, a cousin and top adviser of the ousted president, is charged with the gassing of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988, the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the suppression of the Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War.

Hashem, who surrendered in September 2003, is accused of involvement in the use of chemical weapons in Halabja, as well as a broader wave of ethnic cleansing of Kurds that year, dubbed the Anfal campaign.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 25, 2004
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