Iraq council approves "Chemical Ali" hanging

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.

Saddam and three members of his government have been executed.

Saddam's execution in December 2006 sparked anger among Sunni Arabs, who were outraged by a video showing the ousted leader being hanged to sectarian taunts from official observers.

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

AT ODDS WITH MALIKI

Majeed's death sentence last June was widely cheered by Iraqis, but Talabani and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, opposed the execution of his co-accused, arguing military men should not suffer such a punishment for following orders from their political masters.

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

Government officials argued the presidency council's approval was not even required, but U.S. forces refused to hand over the prisoners until the dispute was resolved.

"Our position remains that we will comply with a request to transfer custody once the government of Iraq has arrived at a consensus as to the legal process that must be followed with regard to these executions, and then follows that process," White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said on Friday.

"We have not yet received a government of Iraq request in this regard," Johndroe said.

The legal wrangle has held up the execution of the three, who were due to have gone to the gallows within days of an Iraqi appeals court upholding their death sentences last September.

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

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

"Today, there are no words to describe my pleasure. All I can do is feel this happiness inside because I have no one to share it with," said Nuri Abdul-Rahman, 65, who lost five of his sons and a grandson during the Anfal campaign.

(Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi; Writing by Ross Colvin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)