Iraq council approves "Chemical Ali" hanging

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - "Chemical Ali", Saddam Hussein's cousin and once one of the most feared men in Iraq, will hang within days after the last legal obstacle holding up his execution was removed, Iraqi officials said on Friday.

The presidency council, made up of President Jalal Talabani and the two vice-presidents, has given the green light for Ali Hassan al-Majeed to be hanged.

"They approved it two days ago," a source at the presidency council told Reuters, without explaining why the decision had been kept secret.

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

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

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

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

Majeed, Saddam's former defense minister, Sultan Hashem, and a former army commander, Hussein Rashid Muhammed, were sentenced to death last June for a genocidal campaign against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s that killed tens of thousands of people.