Tariq Aziz and 'Chemical Ali' Get 15 Years

They should be hanged, of course, but I imagine these two won't last 15 years in jail anyway.

Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and Ali Hassan al-Majid, a senior official in Saddam Hussein’s Baath party known as “Chemical Ali,” were sentenced to 15 years in prison for crimes against humanity in the killing of Baghdad merchants in the 1990s.

Aziz and al-Majid were charged over the 1992 murders of 40 Baghdad wholesalers accused of speculating on food prices when Iraq was under United Nations sanctions. The Iraqi High Tribunal handed down the sentences today, President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said on the party’s Web site. The two men faced the death penalty.

Two of Hussein’s half-brothers, Watbam Ibrahim al-Hassan and Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, were sentenced to death in the case, the PUK said. A 15-year sentence also was given to co-defendant Mizban Khadr Hadi, while Ahmed Hakki got six years. Issam Huwaish was acquitted and released, the party said.

'Chemical Ali' to Hang

I wonder how many cellphone videos we'll see of this.

Iraq's 'Chemical Ali' sentenced to hang

Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.

Al-Majid, a cousin of executed former President Saddam Hussein, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed some 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Of course, as the left continually points out, they never had any WMD in Iraq, so obviously there's a big mixup here.