BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Sunday he is ""determined"" that ""Chemical Ali"" and two other cohorts of Saddam Hussein be hanged for genocide against ethnic Kurds.

""We are determined that the law be fulfilled and that these (three) be handed over to the judicial system,"" Maliki told a press conference.
""We will not be swayed from our determination to ensure that the sentences are carried out.""
Ali Hassan al-Majid, widely known as ""Chemical Ali"" for his use of poisonous gas against Kurds; Sultan Hashim al-Tai, Saddam's defense minister; and Hussein Rashid al-Tikriti, his armed forces deputy chief of operations, were sentenced to death on June 24.
They were found responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Kurds in the so-called Anfal (Spoils) campaign of 1988.
Under Iraqi law they were supposed to have been executed by October 4, 30 days after their sentences were upheld by the Iraq Supreme Court.
But Maliki made it clear he didn't want the executions to take place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ended on October 15, because of the outcry that followed Saddam Hussein's execution during another Muslim holiday.
More than a month after the deadline Majid is still in US custody -- where he is expected to remain until a few hours before his execution -- and Maliki, unsure of his legal footing, has set up a committee to investigate the position.
Further complicating matters, two members of the presidential council, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, have refused to sign the execution order. In the case of Saddam, Talabani, who is opposed on principle to the death penalty, refused to give the order but signed a letter to the Shiite prime minister saying he would raise no objections if the government went ahead.
Hashemi fears that the execution of Tai could undermine already stuttering reconciliation efforts in post-Saddam Iraq.
The vice president argues that Tai, a career military man, had little choice but to follow orders from Saddam.
""It's really very difficult to believe that just because they obey orders issued by a leader like Saddam Hussein they had, in fact, an option to just take it or leave it,"" Hashemi said last month.
He pointed out that after the US-led invasion of 2003, Tai voluntarily surrendered in the northern city of Mosul to U.S. General David Petraeus, now America's top commander in Iraq.
A lawyer who represented ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam before he was hanged on December 30, 2006, told AFP last month that the passing of the timeframe set by the supreme court meant it would now be illegal to execute Majid.
An estimated 182,000 Kurds were killed and 4,000 villages wiped out in the brutal campaign of bombings, mass deportations and gas attacks. ""Thousands of people were killed, displaced and disappeared,"" Iraqi High Tribunal chief judge Mohammed al-Oreibi al-Khalifah said after he had passed sentence in June.
Majid and the other two condemned men are on trial in a separate case for their alleged roles in brutally crushing a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, but the charges against them will be dropped once they are executed.
Saddam's regime said the Anfal campaign was a necessary counter-insurgency operation during Iraq's eight-year war with neighboring Iran.
It involved the systematic bombardment, gassing and assault of areas in the Kurdish autonomous region, which witnessed mass executions and deportations and the creation of prison camps.