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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The death sentence handed down to a notorious Ba'ath-era prison warden, convicted for his role in the Anfal genocide against Kurds in Iraq, cannot be commuted or pardoned, the presiding judge who tried and sentenced the defendant told Rudaw.
Judge Saad al-Lami, President of the Iraqi High Criminal Court, told Rudaw's Nwenar Fatih that the ruling against Ajaj Ahmed Hardan, widely known as the executioner of Nugra Salman Prison, "was upheld by the Federal Court of Cassation and forwarded to the presidency for ratification," noting that not even the Iraqi president has the "authority to commute or pardon these sentences due to a constitutional and legal restriction."
Ajaj served as a supervisor at Nugra Salman prison in Muthanna province, near Iraq's border with Saudi Arabia, where he orchestrated mass starvation, denial of medical care, and systematic physical and psychological torture of political prisoners and Kurdish detainees.
When he assumed his role in 1989, Ajaj transferred nearly 400 Arab detainees out of the prison and replaced them with 3,000 to 5,000 prisoners from the Kurdistan Region and Iraq's eastern Diyala province, home to a significant Kurdish population.
The proceedings involved more than 300 complaints from victims and survivors, mostly Kurds and their families, who recounted his direct involvement in summary executions and deliberate neglect that led to hundreds of deaths, including children and elderly detainees, many of whom were later buried in unmarked mass graves in the surrounding desert.
According to Lami, the defendant's tenure overlapped with the killing of at least 155 people in Nugra Salman. More than 243 victims remain missing with their identities known to the court, while the fate and identities of more than 2,000 others remain undetermined altogether.
Dismissing efforts by the defendant’s family to deny his identity in an attempt to save him, the presiding judge told Rudaw the court secured Ajaj’s identity through survivor recognition, official service records, and his own confession.
"In private gatherings, he [Ajaj] discussed the mass executions carried out by the [Ba’ath regime’s] intelligence service and the general security directorate at the time against the Kurds during Anfal and Kurds of Iranian origin," Lami said.
Addressing criticism that the trial moved swiftly compared with the multi-year proceedings against toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Lami said “the standard of a fair trial is not measured by the number of sessions, but by ensuring every party to the case receives their due rights.”
Lami also clarified that Iraqi law no longer permits executions to be carried out at the scene of a crime, calling that practice "an old approach that is inconsistent with modern legislation." Death sentences, he said, must be carried out exclusively at correctional facilities under the supervision of the federal justice ministry.
Ajaj was captured in August 2025, after nearly four decades on the run living under false identities.
Despite their horrific nature, his crimes form part of the broader genocidal Anfal campaign launched by the Saddam-led Ba’ath regime.
Spanning February to September 1988, the campaign involved chemical weapons attacks, aerial bombardments, and mass executions. An estimated 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds were killed, and more than 4,500 villages were destroyed, culminating in the tragic 1988 chemical attack on Halabja.
