SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A retired Iraqi judge who presided over the trial of Iraq’s late dictator Saddam Hussein died from coronavirus on Friday, the country’s top judicial council said.
Judge Mohammed al-Araibi al-Khalifa, 52, passed away in a hospital in Baghdad where he was being treated for complications from the coronavirus, according to Iraq’s Judicial Council.
The judicial council lauded him for his what it said was courage in handling the trial of Saddam and the former region.
“He remains immortal in the hearts of Iraqis in general and the judges in particular,” it said in a statement.
He shot to fame after he was named an investigative judge in the trial of Saddam and his regime in August 2004.
He later took over as the lead judge in Saddam’s trial for genocide, which also included Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, and five other defendants on charges related to their roles in the bloody 1987-1988 crackdown against Kurdish fighters, known as the Anfal campaign.
The prosecution stated that around 180,000 people died, many of them civilians killed by poison gas. Saddam was subsequently convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed on December 30, 2006.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi and President Barham Salih expressed condolence to his family, saying Oreibi had devoted his life for the “sake of his homeland, law and justice”.
