Chemical Ali" says ordered executions in villages

BAGHDAD, Jan 11 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein's cousin told a court trying him for genocide today he had ordered troops to ''execute'' all those who ignored government orders to leave villages during a military operation against Kurds in 1988.

''Yes, I gave my instructions to consider these villages as prohibited areas and I gave orders to the troops to catch anyone they find there and execute them after investigating them,'' said Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as ''Chemical Ali.'' Majeed, on trial with five other former senior Baath party officials for their roles in the 1988 Anfal (Spoil of War) military campaign, spoke out after prosecutors played tapes they said were of him talking about the need to purge ''Kurdish saboteurs'' from villages.

''The saboteurs are depending on the scattered villages to get support, ammunition and tips,'' a voice which prosecutors identified as Majeed's was heard on the audiotape.

Majeed, considered the main enforcer of a campaign in which prosecutors say 180,000 people were killed, many of them gassed, then asked the judge for his right to reply.

Looking calm, Majeed, who faces a possible death sentence if found guilty, stood up from the front-row seat in the dock once occupied by Saddam in the heavily fortified courtroom and said: ''I'm responsible for the displacement and I took this decision on my own, without going back to the High Military Command or the Baath Party commander. I say that before your court and before God.'' Saddam, who was hanged after an earlier trial for crimes against humanity, was also a defendant in the Anfal trial. The judge formally dropped genocide charges against Saddam after his December 30 execution, but proceedings against the others continue.

During Anfal, thousands of villages declared ''prohibited areas'' were razed and bombed as part of a scorched-earth campaign.

Thousands of villagers were forced to flee.

Majeed, who had shaved the white stubble he sported during his last court appearance on Monday in a sign of mourning for Saddam, referred once to his cousin and former leader with the words ''martyr, have mercy on his soul''.

In another tape, he is heard saying he had received a letter from veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani offering concessions on condition that Saddam's military stop destroying villages.

Talabani is now Iraq's president.

The defendants have said Anfal had legitimate military targets -- Kurdish guerrillas in northern Kurdistan who had sided with Iran during the last stage of the Iraq-Iran war.

The judge adjourned the trial until January 23.

REUTERS BDP RN2148