Jordan, as a State Party to the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, has undertaken to
prevent and to punish acts of genocide. As a State Party to the U.N.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment, Jordan is under international legal obligation to
bring to trial—or to extradite—persons on its territory accused of torture,
no matter where those acts were committed.
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Letter to Jordanian Prime Minister
August 18, 1999
His Excellency Abdur-Ra'uf Rawabdeh
Office of the Prime Minister
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
Via Fax: 962-6-464-2520
Your Excellency,
I am contacting you regarding an urgent and important matter. Mr.Izzat
Ibrahim al-Duri, the vice-chair of the Revolutionary Command Council
(RCC) of Iraq, is scheduled to arrive in Amman this evening. We are
calling on your government to take Mr. Ibrahim into custody for
prosecution on charges of genocide, torture, extrajudicial executions,
and other international crimes, or for extradition to a country that
will undertake to prosecute him for these crimes.
Mr. Ibrahim has for much of the last two decades effectively been the
number two person in the government of President Saddam Hussein. He
shares responsibility for ordering and carrying out the campaign of
genocide against Iraq's Kurdish population, the so-called Anfal campaign
of 1988. He was a member of the RCC's Northern Affairs Committee, which
approved a June 20, 1987 directive, coded SF/4008, calling for "special
strikes"—referring to attacks with chemical weapons—"to kill the largest
number of persons."
Mr. Ibrahim also bears responsibility for numerous other acts of mass
murder, widespread torture, and crimes against humanity committed by the
government of Iraq, which are a matter of record. At the time of the
Gulf War, Mr. Ibrahim held the post of commander for the north, in which
capacity he was responsible for suppressing the Kurdish uprising that
ensued. In January 1991 he was quoted as warning the people of
Sulaimaniyya that "if you have forgotten Halabja, I would like to remind
you that we are ready to repeat the operation." Halabja, as you know,
was the target of a major Iraqi chemical weapons assault on March 16,
1988 which killed between 3,200 and 5,000 residents.
Jordan, as a State Party to the United Nations Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, has undertaken to
prevent and to punish acts of genocide. As a State Party to the U.N.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment, Jordan is under international legal obligation
to bring to trial—or to extradite—persons on its territory accused of
torture, no matter where those acts were committed.
Mr. Ibrahim is arriving in Amman tonight on Royal Jordanian Airlines
flight number 122 from Vienna. We call upon your government to do its
utmost to bring Mr. Ibrahim to justice on these charges in a competent
court of law in Jordan or in another country.
We thank you for your immediate attention to this most urgent and
important matter.
Sincerely,
/S/
Hanny Megally
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
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