World News 15-12-2004 Trial For Saddam Cronies who: Ali Hassan al-Majid aka `Chemical Ali` what: Expected to stand trial for war crimes where: Iraq when: Next week snippet: "War-crimes trials against the most senior figures in Saddam Hussein`s ousted regime will begin next week," says Nick Wadhams in The Scotsman, following a statement from Iraq`s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi. "Mr Allawi did not say whether Saddam himself would be among the senior Baath Party members facing trial," writes Wadhams, but the BBC says one of the defendants will be Ali Hassan al-Majid, who earned the nickname as Chemical Ali "after leading the chemical attack on Kurds in Halabja during an offensive in 1987". Meanwhile, Iraq`s human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, revealed for the first time that Saddam Hussein "is being held at Camp Cropper, a United States base near Baghdad`s international airport," says The Telegraph. In other Iraq news, The Times reports that the Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has been in hiding for a decade, is expected to re-emerge as a figurehead in January`s elections; and The Telegraph says the High Court in London has given the go-ahead for an independent inquiry into the death of 26 year-old Baha Mousa, a civilian hotel employee who was allegedly murdered by British military guards from The Queen`s Lancashire Regiment in Basra last year. [... more]

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