Chemical Ali, the cousin of Saddam Hussein who masterminded the brutal campaign of genocide against Iraq's Kurds in the 1980s, was sentenced to death today by a court in Baghdad.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, 66, along with five others from the Saddam regime, were convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for the slaughter of up to 180,000 Kurds on the border with Iran from 1987-88. Three co-defendants were also sentenced to death, two received life sentences and one was acquitted.

Al-Majid, using a cane and who appeared as a pathetic and reduced figure from the days when he commanded the Baath Party’s Northern Bureau, trembled in the dock as the judge read out the charges and the sentence: death by hanging. Dressed in traditional Arab clothes, his only words in response were: “Thanks be to God.”

During the short hearing at the Iraqi High Tribunal in the palatial surrounds of a former Baath Party building, each of the defendents shuffled into court, and were dealt with quickly by the judge, Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa. When two tried to protest and the guards tried to stop them, the judge signalled that they should be allowed to continue, and simply ignored the men who once terrorised the country.

“Thousands of people were killed, displaced and disappeared,” the judge said at a post-trial press conference.“They were civilians with no weapons and nothing to do with war."

The Amman-based defence team vowed to appeal, describing the verdicts issued after the 10-month trial “unjust and political and have nothing to do with the law."

The decisions, if upheld, would bring to a close the second trial against former regime officials since Saddam was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion. Lawyers have 30 days to lodge and appeal, which, if it is not upheld, means the death sentence must be carried out within 30 days of that decision.

Majid, whose very name once sparked fear among Iraqis, directed a military campaign against the Kurdish north in which chemical weapons were used, villages demolished, agricultural lands destroyed and tens of thousands of people killed.

Kurds have long sought justice for the so-called Anfal or “Spoils of War” campaign that has left lasting scars on their mountainous region.

Prosecutors say up to 180,000 people were killed in the seven-month scorched-earth” operation in 1988. The populations of entire villages disappeared. Majid was viewed as Saddam’s main enforcer, a man with a reputation for brutality who was used by the president to crush dissent. He also played a leading role in stamping out a Shia rebellion in the south after the 1991 Gulf War.

During Anfal, thousands of villages declared “prohibited areas” were razed and bombed. Thousands of villagers were deported, many executed. Mustard gas and nerve agents were used to clear villages, earning Majid his grim nickname “Chemical Ali”. Many of those killed in the poison gas attacks were women and children.

Majid admitted during the trial he ordered troops to execute all Kurds who ignored orders to leave their villages but did not confirm ordering the use of chemical weapons.

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