Profile: The Anfal trial defendants

The Anfal Campaign of 1987-88 saw the alleged murder and “disappearance” of about 100,000 Kurds. The six defendants in the case face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Ali Hassan al-Majid

Al-Majid was mistakenly said to have been killed in April 2003 after an attack on his home [AP]

Born in Tikrit in 1941, al-Majid became part of the inner circle of his cousin, Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president. In March 2003, he was appointed commander of southern Iraq and, according to the US-led forces in Iraq, he co-ordinated fighters battling against the US-led invasion.

He was mistakenly said to have been killed in April 2003 after an attack on his house in Basra, but US officials later confirmed, on August 21, 2003, that he had been captured alive.

Al-Majid was commander of the Baath party Regional Command, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and the head of the Central Workers Bureau.

As secretary general of the Northern Bureau of Iraq’s Baath party, al-Majid had authority over all agencies of the state in the Kurdish region from March 1987 to April 1989.

Human Rights Watch has alleged he masterminded the Anfal campaign and al-Majid acknowledged in court that he gave orders to destroy a large number of villages in the area, saying they were “full of Iranian agents”.

According to testimonies from Iraqi opposition activists and refugees, he also played a leading role in the campaign against Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the 1990s.

General Sultan Hashem Ahmed al-Tai

Born in the 1940s in Mosul, al-Tai served as minister of defence under Saddam and was number 27 on the US list of its “most wanted” Iraqi government officials. After the US-led invasion, he turned himself in to the US’s 101st Airborne Division.

As the US-led invasion of Iraq got under way in 2003 and Baghdad was bombed, al-Tai was frequently seen on Iraqi television meeting the victims of the campaign at bomb sites around the city.

Daoud Baghestani, an official from the Iraqi Human Rights League, said al-Tai turned himself in after US promises that he would be struck from the wanted list, but a Centcom statement made no mention of the deal.

Some sources have said that Paul Bremer, the US administrator for the Provisional Authority immediately after the invasion of Iraq, asked al-Tai to be president of Iraq because of the respect he enjoys among the Iraqi military, but that al-Tai refused.

In 1988, he was named chief-in-charge of the Anfal campaign.

Al-Tikriti served as deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces [EPA]

Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti

Al-Tikriti served in the Iraqi army for 40 years, during which time he held a large number of positions, including deputy director of operations for the Iraqi armed forces.

The chief prosecutor has called for him to be sentenced to death for alleged war crimes against the Kurds.

Sabir Abdul-Aziz al-Duri

Al-Duri held a number of military posts and was made governor of Karbala in 1996. He held the position for five years, winning the respect of much of the city’s population.

During the Anfal campaign he was director of Iraq’s military intelligence.

A number Shia tribal leaders submitted a petition to the Anfal court to reduced his sentence in recognition of his work as governor of Karbala.

Al-Ani was governor of Mosul in northern Iraq [EPA]

Tahir Tawfiq al-Ani

A Baath party member, at the time of the Anfal campaign Al-Ani was governor of Mosul in northern Iraq and head of the Northern Affairs Committee.

Munqith al-Faroon, chief prosecutor in the Anfal case, said in his closing remarks that al-Ani should be released because the evidence against him was insufficient.

Farhan Mutlak al-Jubouri

Al-Jubouri was the former head of military intelligence’s eastern regional office.