Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as Chemical Ali, has been executed, a government spokesman has announced.

Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein’s regime, was convicted of killing Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999.

He was also sentenced to death for a gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988.

It is believed that about 5,000 people died in the attack, most of them women and children.

(Source: BBC)