Chemical Ali on hunger strike in prison

Chemical Ali, on death row in a prison in Iraq, was sent to a hospital Sunday morning after a three-day hunger strike.

CNN reports that Ali Hassan al-Majeed, a cousin of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, was taken to a U.S. military facility in Baghdad's International Zone, also known as the Green Zone, after fainting Sunday, defense lawyer Badee Aref said.

Al-Majeed was nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for his role in a crackdown that killed at least 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, including a 1988 attack with poison gas that killed 5,000 people in the town of northern Iraqi town of Halabja. Iraq's presidency council approved his death sentence in February, but no date for his execution has been revealed.

He and 14 others now standing trial for the supression of the 1991 Shiite uprising went on a hunger strike Friday to protest their living conditions, Aref said.

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