Letter to Jordanian Prime Minister

August 18, 1999  
His Excellency Abdur-Ra'uf Rawabdeh  
Office of the Prime Minister  
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan  
 
 
 
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.

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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,  
 
Hanny Megally  
Executive Director  
Middle East and North Africa Division  
Human Rights Watch