KurdistanObserver.com   Judge Rizgar Says Chemical Ali Can Hang in Kurdistan Legally Erbil, Southern Kurdistan -AKI- June 28, 2007- A judge in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region has said there are no legal reasons preventing a cousin and former close aide of Saddam Hussein from being executed in Kurdistan. Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin was referring to the former Iraqi defence minister and military commander, Ali Hasan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical Ali", who has been sentenced to death for his role in the killings of ethnic Kurd villagers in Iraq during the 1980s. "There isn't a single juridical text that prevents the carrying out of a death sentence anywhere within the borders of Iraq, including the Kurdish city of Halabja," he told. AKI. Halabja was where thousands of Kurdish civilians were killed with poisonous gas and other chemical weapons, an event which gave al-Majid his nickname. "Iraqi penal law does not specify the location of where an execution should take place because this is a government responsibility. A magistrates' role ends with the sentencing," Amin told.AKI. Halabja has launched a citizens' campaign to have al-Majid hanged in the city, which they believe would be a symbolic gesture to highlight the suffering of Iraq's ethnic Kurds under Saddam's regime. The former chief judge, a Kurd from Sulaimani city , who stepped down from the Saddam Hussein case in 2006.       Copyright © 2002, Kurdistan Observer