A prison warden who abused Kurdish inmates during Saddam Hussein's rule has been sentenced to death in Iraq.
Ajaj Ahmed Hardan was convicted of involvement in the “crime of genocide against humanity” during Saddam's campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s.
An Iraqi court heard he had confessed to starving detainees at the desert Nugra Salman prison. He also admitted raping a Kurdish woman who was held there, and taking part in “liquidation operations” ordered by Saddam's intelligence network.
The warden – who worked at the prison for three years – had been in hiding after Saddam's fall from power in 2003, with his family claiming he had died, authorities said. But Iraq's National Security Service tracked him down and announced his arrest last year.
The court sentenced him to death by hanging “as a just retribution for the heinous crimes he perpetrated against the Iraqi people”, it was announced on Thursday.
Nechirvan Barzani, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, welcomed the verdict against a man he described as the “executioner of Nugra Salman”.
He called the ruling a “a victory for justice” and for the victims of Saddam's persecution of the Kurds. He said the warden's punishment was a sign that those abuses “will never be forgotten.”
Between 1987 and 1988, the Iraqi president ordered operations against Kurdish guerrillas in the country’s north, including the use of chemical weapons, accusing them of collaborating with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988.
The operations, particularly the Anfal campaign of 1988, led to mass killings and disappearances of civilians and the destruction of thousands of villages. As many as 180,000 people are estimated to have been killed.
Saddam was overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2003 and executed in 2006. Iraq retains the death penalty and often uses it against people convicted of terrorism offences.
