ICTJ in the News

June 29, 2007

Op-Ed: The botched end of a thug

The Daily Star

By Hanny Megally and Miranda Sissons

Ali Hassan al-Majid represented all that was foul in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Majid was Hussein's first cousin, a brutal and ruthless enforcer who personally directed many of the regime's most notorious crimes. From March 1987 until April 1989, Majid controlled all government agencies in the Kurdish north, including the military, intelligence, and security forces. It was during this period that he was charged with carrying out the genocidal Anfal campaign - and earned his nickname "Chemical Ali." He then went on to head Iraq's military occupation of Kuwait and afterward led the brutal suppression of the 1991 popular uprising in southern Iraq. During the 1990s he was linked with the military campaign that decimated Iraq's Marsh Arab civilian population.

Of all of the regime's crimes, those that occurred during the 1988 Anfal campaign are best known and documented. For more than six months, Iraqi military forces systematically marauded through hundreds of Kurdish villages, destroying homes and property, killing elderly men, women and children in mass executions or with poison gas, abducting and eliminating civilians, and trucking others away to miserable semi-prisons in other parts of the country. An estimated 100,000 to 180,000 civilians were killed. Because Kurdish victims were targeted on the basis of their ethnicity, human rights groups labeled the Anfal campaign a genocide.

Yet when Majid finally did have his day in court, the Anfal courtroom was a lonely place. When our organization visited five months ago the visitors' chamber was empty. The public interest evident at the tribunal's first trial, that of Dujail, had gone. Even the media preferred to watch the edited television version rather than take the trouble to attend.

One reason for this lies in the tribunal's own lack of legitimacy. Although the Anfal crimes were horrific, most people in the region see the court as mere window-dressing of America's enforced regime change. That is not entirely unfair. Created by order of the occupying power and dependent on American technical and logistical support, the tribunal has failed miserably to gain credibility.

The legitimacy problems have been worsened by Iraqi political interference. The tribunal statute gave the Iraqi government several easy ways to manipulate proceedings. As a result, judges in the Dujail case changed so often it was almost a game of musical chairs. And Abdullah al-Amiri, the chief judge in the Anfal case, was replaced at the insistence of the Iraqi prime minister's office just three weeks after the trial began. Despite praiseworthy efforts by several tribunal judges, it is obvious that the tribunal has been unable to insulate itself from political pressure.

Another reason for the lack of interest lies in the tribunal's prosecutorial strategy. Early in its work the tribunal decided to investigate and try 14 cases. Individuals such as Saddam Hussein who were involved in multiple crimes would therefore face multiple trials. It was clear Anfal would be a massive case with great public resonance. But the tribunal chose to hear the Dujail first, thinking it would be an easier and quicker case with which to begin. That might have been true, had Saddam Hussein not been added to the case at the last moment. As a result, the world feverishly elevated what had been intended as a small experimental case into the trial of the Baathist regime. Few knew or cared that there were other trials to come. To add insult to injury Saddam was later executed halfway through the Anfal trial, depriving it of its star billing.

The Dujail executions left a nasty aftertaste: the speed and malevolence of the process was startlingly public. After December 30, 2006, no one questioned Anfal's likely conclusion, and many mourned the fact that Hussein's role in the campaign would never receive an airing. Even those who normally closely watch such prosecutions lacked the energy to monitor what was going on.

For those who did watch, however, the Anfal trial had amazing evidence - but was dogged by many of the same problems as Dujail. These included political interference, extremely broad charging instruments, which made it difficult for defendants to prepare a defense, and the consistent refusal to facilitate defense witness evidence by video or other innovative means. Midway through the trial the tribunal also appeared to be struggling to analyze the evidence in a manner that satisfied the complex legal requirements of genocide. We will have to study the judgment carefully to see whether these and other problems were resolved.

It is difficult today to say that the Anfal trial has ushered in a new era of justice in Iraq. Still, there are many lessons that can be drawn. If a tribunal is to be viewed as legitimate, it must be afforded independence. If complex prosecutions are to succeed, they must be carefully thought out and shielded from political pressure. And if one wants to conduct a well-regarded trial, international minimum fair trial guarantees should be respected. The tribunal has faced terrible security problems, but none of them explains these basic deficiencies.

Ali Hassan al-Majid was sentenced to five death sentences last Sunday, along with life imprisonment and another 59 years' servitude for good measure. For many Iraqis, including Anfal victims, justice has been done. But has it?

Hanny Megally is the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program, and Miranda Sissons the deputy director, Middle East, at the International Center for Transitional Justice. They wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR. The ICTJ has observed Iraq tribunal proceedings regularly from Baghdad.