GAS, NOT THE ROPE:

'Chemical Ali' sentenced to death (The Associated Press, June 24, 2007)

Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.

Majid, a cousin of the executed former president, Saddam Hussein, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed about 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

As the verdicts were read out in Baghdad, to the north about 10,000 American troops were in their sixth day Sunday of a major offensive to oust fighters of the Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia group from the city of Baquba.