Saddam Hussein's cousin went on trial along with 14 others in Baghdad today accused of the slaughter of up to 100,000 Shia Muslim Iraqis.

Dressed in a cream robe and white kuffiya shawl, Ali Hassan al-Majid – given the nickname Chemical Ali for his use of mustard gas, and sarin against the Iraqi Kurds – took to the stand at the Iraqi High Tribunal case this morning to answer crimes against humanity charges.

The trial is the third held by the tribunal, which was set up to probe crimes committed by the late Iraqi dictator's former regime.

Majid has already been sentenced to death in a previous trial for his crimes against the Kurds, in which he was found guilty of authorising the use of chemical weapons against Kurdish villages, which he described as being "full of Iranian agents".

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What happened in 1991 has very little relevance to many Iraqis given what has happened more recently in Baghdad

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The current case refers to crimes allegedly committed by Saddam loyalists, under Majid's command, to put down an uprising by Iraq's long-downtrodden Shia population in 1991.

The rebellion was instigated by a combination of Iraqi Shia soldiers retreating from their defeat in Kuwait in the first Gulf War, and local citizens.

In an opening statement today, the chief prosecutor accused Saddam's southern Army of carrying out cold-blooded executions to quash the uprising.

In particular, he claimed Majid had gone to detention centres, tied detainees' hands together, and gunned down the suspects in cold blood.

Along with the Shia rebels, the massacres extended indiscriminately to civilians of the same religious denomination in brutal crackdowns around the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, and in the Hilla and Basra regions, the prosecution alleges.

Saddam’s forces were believed to have used helicopter gunships and tanks to defeat the rebels, and estimates suggest that between 60,000 and 100,000 Shia were slaughtered.

"The helicopters were bombing the cities and houses of people. Prisoners captured were killed," the prosecutor told the court, during his statement.

"Majid used to come to detention centres, tie the hands of the detainees and then shoot them dead with his weapon. The dead were then later buried in mass graves.

"Many mass graves have been found since the 2003 war ended. And we will find many more if we keep searching."

Before the opening statement, Majid was among the first of the suspects to enter the Iraqi High Tribunal in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone.

"I am the fighter Ali Hassan al-Majid," he replied when asked to identify himself by Judge Mohammed al-Oraibi al-Khalifa.

Shia Muslims make up 60 per cent of Iraq’s population, and were persecuted for decades under Saddam’s Sunni-led regime.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion, Iraqi and international experts have exhumed dozens of mass graves of victims killed in the uprising, and the experts' reports are expected to be the key evidence during the trial.

Many Shia Muslims blame President Bush Snr for the failure of the uprising.

Despite a message from the former US President for the rebels to "take matters into their own hands," the US then struck a ceasefire agreement with Saddam's forces, effectively allowing the Iraqi Army to crush the rebellion unopposed.

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