Iraq orders confiscation of assets owned by Saddam Hussein’s relatives

An Iraqi legal body ordered Monday to confiscate assets of hundreds of relatives and cronies of former leader Saddam Hussein.

Tasked with vetting the members of Hussein’s Baath party, the Iraqi Supreme National Commission for Accountability and Justice decided to confiscate the movable and immovable properties of a list of 4,257 people.

Their properties will be registered as properties of the Iraqi Finance Ministry, the commission said in a statement.

The commission said the listed people have the right to object the decision in a special committee formed by the Council of Ministers to decide the fate of the seized assets.

Some of the named in the list are in prison, others are living abroad and some were executed, such as Saddam Hussein himself and his cousin Ali Al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali.

Ali was hanged in 2010 for ordering attacks in 1988 that killed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabcha in Iraq’s northeastern province of Sulaimaniyah.