IN MEMORY OF THE AL-ANFAL CAMPAIGN (CHEMICAL ALI EXECUTED ON 25 JANUARY 2010)

On this date (25 January 2010), Ali Hassan al-Majid A.K.A Chemical Ali was executed by hanging in Iraq. Let us not forget the victims and survivors of the Al-Anfal Campaign who died in the Halabja genocide, let us hear from them:

Kurds celebrate in a street in Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, 24 June, 2007.

QUOTE 1: “I want him to be executed here in the place where he committed the worst crime for the sake of the victims.”

AUTHOR: A Kurdish man referring to the death sentence of Chemical Ali on 24 June 2007. 

QUOTE 2: "I am glad to see Chemical Ali hanged at last and I am psychologically relieved to see the person who killed thousands of my people being punished at last."

AUTHOR: Aras Abdi lost 12 relatives in the Halabja attack. 

Freshta Raper

QUOTE 3: Freshta Raper lost 20 members of her family during the Anfal campaign.

She is among those who have welcomed the verdict.

"For the people of Kurdistan this is a day of justice," she said. "We've waited close to 20 years now to see Chemical Ali or Ali Hassan al-Majid and his cohorts brought to justice. So for us really it's very important that there is a day of justice, and a day of reckoning finally for the 100s of thousands of victims of genocide."

AUTHOR: Freshta Raper is an Iraq Kurd from Halabja who now lives in London. 

QUOTE 4: Another Halabja resident, Kamil Mahmoud, said he still has trouble breathing as a result of the attack.

"I was afraid that I would die without seeing Chemical Ali punished for his crimes," said Mahmoud, who lost eight family members to the gas. "But thanks to God, the time has come for Ali to see his shameful end."

AUTHOR: Kamil Mahmoud lost eight family members to the gas in Halabaja.

QUOTE 5: Behnam Karim, another local, said, "As a Kurdish citizen I am very happy because of the decision. But I wish the decision can define Halabja's crime as a genocide."

Hundreds of Kurds danced in the streets last June when al-Majid was sentenced to death.

But on Friday in Halabja, a city near the Iranian border that was the scene of a notorious gas attack that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians, news that al-Majid's sentence is to be carried out was greeted with relief but not joy.

AUTHOR: Behnam Karim is a family member of Kurdish war victims.

QUOTE 6: The verdict for Chemical Ali’s execution was issued earlier in the month, prompting jubilation in Halabja, where people were seen cheering and playing music on the streets.

"I have heard the news of the execution [of] the criminals whose hands [are] stained with blood. This is a happy day for the Kurdish people," Reuters quoted Iraqi Kurd Saman Faruq as saying.

AUTHOR: Saman Faruq is a family member of a Kurdish victim.

 

IN LOVING MEMORY OF CLARA AND GILBERT LAMBERTSON (KILLER, BILLY BAILEY EXECUTED BY HANGING IN DELAWARE IN 25 JANAURY 1996)

On this day, 25 January 1996, Billy Bailey was the third person executed by hanging in the U.S.A since 1965 and currently as of today, the last person executed by the gallows in the country. Let us not forget the two victims he murdered, see this CNN News Source: http://edition.cnn.com/US/9601/hanging/

Delaware holds first hanging since 1946

Inmate's decision stirs controversy

January 25, 1996

Web posted at: 1:10 a.m. EST

From Correspondent Gary Tuchman

SMYRNA, Delaware (CNN) -- Convicted double-murderer Billy Bailey was executed early Thursday in Delaware. Bailey drew a lot of attention because of the method he chose: death by hanging.

Only a few hundred people live in the tiny town of Cheswold, Delaware. Two of them used to live in a modest home where they grew corn and soybeans, and, more importantly, raised children and grandchildren.

Clara and Gilbert Lambertson were 73 and 80 years old, respectively, when a man named Billy Bailey came into their lives and then ended their lives.

"This was a heinous crime against innocent people. They were elderly, in their own home. They did not know Billy Bailey. He simply intruded and took their lives in a vicious manner," said Delaware Deputy Attorney General Paul Wallace.

Bailey, 49, was convicted of shooting the Lambertsons to death 17 years ago.

Bailey's was the third hanging execution in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976.

It was the first hanging in Delaware since 1946. Hanging as capital punishment is allowed in just three other states: Montana, New Hampshire, and Washington.

'Things can really go wrong'

In Delaware's largest city, Wilmington, they rang a bell to protest hanging and the death penalty in general. The protesters are among some who consider hanging cruel and unusual punishment.

"If you drop a man too far you can actually decapitate him. If you don't drop him far enough, you will break his neck, and he'll strangle to death slowly, kicking at the end of the rope," said Bailey's attorney, Edmund Lyons.

The two-story wooden gallows is outdoors on the grounds of the Delaware Correctional Center in Smyrna, where heavy rains were forecast for Wednesday night. The 220-pound Bailey was escorted up 19 steps to a platform, where an unidentified staff member in a black hood served as hangman.

Delaware inmates have the option of dying by lethal injection, but Bailey chose the other method.

"I think that it has a bad image because things can really go wrong. There is no doubt, hanging is not 100 percent certain. Nothing is," Wallace said.

Victims' son: 'We finally got him'

What is certain is the anger and depression that Delbert Lambertson, 70, and Saxton Lambertson, 68, have experienced. They are two of the victims' four children, and had planned to be among the witnesses to the execution.

"It's something that I think I'm obligated to do on behalf of my father and mother. That's the way I feel. When we see this happen, I can say to my mom and dad, we finally got him," Delbert Lambertson said.

Delaware corrections officials make it clear that they prefer lethal injection to hanging, one reason being that they're out of practice. When it comes to experienced practitioners, the condemned man's attorney may have put it best when he said, "It's not as if you can look in the yellow pages under 'h' for hangman."