Top Saddam Aides Get 15 Years for Killings

Saddam Hussein’s ex-foreign minister, Tariq Aziz, and his cousin “Chemical Ali” al-Majid were both sentenced today to 15 years in prison for their involvement in the 1992 execution of 42 Baghdad merchants. The pair was among eight defendants, and only one—then governor of Iraq’s central bank—was acquitted, the Washington Post reports. Two of Hussein’s half-brothers received death sentences.

Al-Majid already has three death sentences for his role in other crimes, including the 1988 Kurdish genocide. Aziz, who turned himself into US authorities a month after Iraq’s government fell, is 73 and in poor health, his family says. He also served as deputy prime minister under Saddam, but was never thought to have wielded much influence. (More Saddam Hussein stories.)