IRAQ - Aug 21 - 'Chemical Ali' On Trial For Shi'ite Killings.

Fifteen former Iraqi officials and military commanders goes on trial on charges related to the suppression of a 1991 Shi'ite uprising in which tens of thousands were killed. It is the third in a series of "regime crimes" trials related to acts carried out during the presidency of Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, and the first to deal with the uprising touched off by Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf war. Defendants include Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged use of poison gas, who has already been sentenced to death for his involvement in the killing of Kurdish civilians in the 1988 "Anfal" campaign. Two other defendants in the current trial - Sultan Hashem Ahmad al-Taie, former defence minister, and Hussein Rashid Muhammad, former armed forces deputy director of operations - were also sentenced to death in the Anfal trial. The court heard from the first of an estimated 90 witnesses: a retired military officer who related how his brother and cousin were killed when Iraqi forces shelled his village near the southern city of Basra after residents stormed the local police station. However, it is unclear whether the prosecution will be able to prove the bloodshed was on the scale claimed by many Shi'ite. The prosecutor described the incident as one of the "ugliest crimes ever committed against humanity in modern history". According to human rights groups, government tanks, artillery and helicopters fired indiscriminately on ...