'CHEMICAL ALI' DEFIANT AT TRIAL !

Ali Hassan al-Majid said he wanted to prevent bloodshed. Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, has told his genocide trial that he has nothing to apologise for.
He was speaking after prosecutors presented documents to the court which they said implicated him in the killing of Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s.
He acquired his nickname after alleged use of poison gas against Kurds.
He said his actions had targeted rebels fighting the government, not Kurds on the basis of their ethnicity.
"If I have committed any wrongdoing against any Iraqi, then I am ready to apologise to him," he told the court.
"If you asked me why have you done this, my answer is that we were compelled to do so to stop the shedding of Iraqi blood that was running for more than 25 years."
He is one of six defendants facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the so-called Anfal campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 people.
The tribunal dropped charges against the seventh co-defendant, Saddam Hussein himself, when he was executed on 30 December after being convicted in a separate case.

BBC NEWS REPORT.