Former Iraqi general Ali Hassan al-Majeed, better known as Chemical Ali, has been hanged in Baghdad after being convicted of crimes against humanity.

Saddam Hussein's henchman received four death sentences, the last just a week ago for the poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988. At least 5,000 people, most of them women and children, died in the attack.
 

Chemical Ali was also known as the Butcher of Kurdistan for his violent repression of Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s. It was also instrumental in crushing a Shi'ite revolt in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.

Photograph: Victims of the Halabja poison gas attack; Kurdistan KURD/Flickr