BAGHDAD, June 19: Iraq’s former military dictator Saddam Hussein’s feared cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali”, has appeared before Iraq’s special tribunal as it steps up the process of questioning former regime loyalists over war crimes.

Majid was one of eight aides to the former president to be questioned by investigators this week, officials said on Sunday, raising to at least 12 the number interrogated in the past 10 days. Majid last appeared before a judge in December.

The new Iraqi government, facing fresh elections by the year’s end, is keen to put Saddam and others on trial soon. But officials with the independent Tribunal, set up 18 months ago, say the process cannot be rushed and no trial date has been set.

Majid, who acquired his nickname after Iraqi forces dropped poison gas on Kurdish villagers in 1988 that killed more than 5000 civilians, was questioned on Thursday about the suppression of religious political parties and the killing and detention of Fayli Kurds, a Shia minority among the mostly Sunni Kurds.

Also questioned on the same accusations were Taha Yassin Ramadan, Saddam’s former vice-president, and Saadoun Shaker, interior minister early in Saddam’s rule, who was also asked about the killing of Shia villagers from Dujail in 1982.

The killings in Dujail — more than 140 villagers were killed after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam as his motorcade passed – is likely to be key to an early trial of Saddam, who was questioned about the incident himself a week ago. Though minor compared to the genocide and crimes against humanity with which the former president may be charged, government officials say it may be easier to prove Saddam’s personal responsibility for ordering the retribution.

“Dujail is a discrete case and not as factually complex as some of the others,” a source close to the Tribunal said on Sunday, explaining that made it easier to investigate.

Five Saddam lieutenants — including Ramadan and Saddam’s half-brother Barzan — have already been questioned in connection with Dujail, along with three other Baathists.

Sources close to the Tribunal said that the investigative stage of the Dujail case could be completed within a month or so, at which point evidence would be presented to a trial judge who would decide whether the case goes ahead.

Also interrogated this week with Majid was Abid Hamid Mahmud, Saddam’s secretary, who ranked fourth in a US list of the 55 most wanted figures after the fall of the old regime.

Mahmud was also questioned about the suppression of religious parties — a reference to parties representing the Shia majority which were forced underground by the 1980s.

Two other, less-well-known defendants were questioned on the “events of 1991”, in reference to the suppression of Shia and Kurdish uprisings after the Gulf War.—Reuters