Iraq
The moment Ajaj Ahmed Hardan al-Tikriti was brought before the Rusafa Court in Baghdad on May 7, 2026. Photo: Screengab/ Halkawt Aziz/ Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A notorious Ba’ath-era prison warden on Thursday confessed to several charges against him, including sexual assault and the systematic starvation of Kurdish prisoners at Nugra Salman prison, Iraqi officials told Rudaw. The atrocities formed part of the broader genocidal Anfal campaign launched against the Kurdish community in the 1980s.
Ajaj Ahmed Hardan, widely known among survivors as the “executioner of Nugra Salman Prison,” appeared for his first trial at the Rusafa Criminal Court on Thursday - the first in what is expected to be lengthy legal proceedings involving more than 300 complaints from victims and survivors, mostly Kurds.
“Throughout the interrogation sessions with the accused, Ajaj Ahmed Hardan, he has confessed to carrying out several crimes during his tenure as warden of Nugra Salman Prison,” Arshad Hakim, spokesperson for the Iraqi National Security Service (INSS), told Rudaw.
Hakim added that Ajaj “confessed to raping the daughters of Kurdish detainees held in Nugra Salman, starving the prisoners, and preventing food from reaching them” during his time supervising the prison, located in the desert areas of Iraq’s southern Muthanna province near the border with Saudi Arabia.
Moreover, Ajaj admitted involvement in operations linked to the Ba’ath-era intelligence apparatus during “persecution campaigns that targeted Fayli Kurds and people accused by Saddam’s regime of links to Iran,” the INSS official further stated.
When he assumed his role as Nugra Salman warden in 1989, Ajaj transferred nearly 400 Arab detainees out of the prison and replaced them with between 3,000 and 5,000 prisoners from the Kurdistan Region and Iraq’s eastern Diyala province, home to a significant Kurdish population.
Survivors recount his direct involvement in summary executions and deliberate neglect that led to the deaths of hundreds, including children and elderly detainees, many of whom were later buried in unmarked mass graves in the surrounding desert.
Rudaw learned that the Iraqi judiciary has issued 221 invitations to victims’ families from the Kurdistan Region and Diyala to attend the trial and testify against Ajaj.
The trial comes after the executioner was captured in August 2025, after nearly four decades on the run living under false identities.
Despite their horrific nature, Ajaj’s 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.
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