Baghdad - Former high-ranking Iraqi officials convicted in Iraq's Anfal genocide case have submitted their appeal requests to the Higher Criminal Court's appellate body, Iraqi Public Prosecutor Jaafar al-Musawi told the independent Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency on Monday. "The appeal requests were submitted on July 23, the last day in the deadline," Musawi said. The Iraqi court last month convicted five of the six defendants and acquitted one in the case that centred around the former Iraqi regime's killing of Kurds.
Death sentences were handed down on Ali Hassan al-Majid - "Chemical Ali", a cousin of Saddam Hussein - and on former minister of defence Sultan Hashim Ahmed and assistant chief of staff of the former Iraqi army Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti.
Saber Abdul-Aziz al-Dori, director of the former military intelligence, and Farhan Motlak al-Juburi, the chief of the former intelligence in the Northern Zone, received life terms. Former Mosul governor Taher Tawfiq al-Aani was acquitted.
The Anfal (Spoils of War) campaign was led by the former regime between 1986 and 1989. Independent sources estimate there were 50,000 to more than 100,000 deaths in the campaign, in which chemical weapons were used, while Kurds claim about 182,000 people were killed.
Charges against prime defendant Saddam were dropped after his execution on December 30, 2006, four days after an appellate body upheld a death sentence by another court which investigated crimes committed by Saddam's regime in al-Dujail, a small town north of Baghdad.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi parliament on Monday ended its legislative season for its August summer recess, a media source in parliament told VOI.
Work in the different parliamentary committees will continue during August, the source added.
