Iraq \ Developments

The latest developments in Iraq:

The United Nations expressed concern Tuesday about overcrowding and “grave human rights violations” of detainees in Iraqi custody — in one case, 123 men crammed into a single cell. The warning comes as the U.S. prepares to turn over control to the Iraqis of thousands of security detainees in its custody under a new security pact that would end the U.S. mission by 2012.

Saddam Hussein’s notorious cousin “Chemical Ali” Hassan al-Majid received a second death sentence Tuesday — this time for crushing a Shiite uprising in the wake of Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Al-Majid, once among the most feared members of Saddam’s regime, muttered “thanks be to God” as chief judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa declared him guilty and imposed the sentence at the end of the trial, which began in August 2007.

A series of bombings in northern and southern Iraq on Tuesday killed at least 14 Iraqis and injured dozens. Near the town of Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi army convoy, killing five soldiers on their way to conduct house raids, said Capt. Muthana Ahmad, a spokesman for the Babil provincial police. Another policeman was killed by a bomb planted on his motorcycle, Ahmad said. In the northern city of Mosul, a cart laden with explosives detonated near an elementary school, killing four civilians, including a woman and two children, and wounding 16, said Brig. Gen. Khalid Abdul Sattar, an Iraqi military spokesman in Nineveh province.

Source: Combined dispatches