Text of report by Dubai-based, Saudi private capital-funded pan- Arab news channel Al-Arabiya TV on 8 June Busho Ibrahim, under-secretary of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, has announced that the United States handed over eight former regime officials to Iraqi authorities.

SADDAM Hussein's former deputy PM Tariq Aziz went on trial yesterday. The 72-year-old walked with the aid of a stick for a brief hearing in the capital Baghdad. He and several other former Iraqi officials have been accused of involvement in the execution of 40 people in 1992.

After Saddam Hussein, no other member of Iraq's former regime is more famous than Tariq Aziz, his deputy prime minister.

IRAQ'S presidency endorsed the execution of SaddamHussein's cousin known as "Chemical Ali" who was sentenced to death for his role in the 1980s campaign against Kurds, a government adviser said today. Ali Hassan al-Majid's death sentence will be carried out within 30 days.

THE notorious "Chemical Ali", one of Saddam's Hussein's most feared lieutenants, is to hang. He was condemned to death on genocide charges for killing 100,000 people during the 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds in northern Iraq. Many were gassed - hence Ali Hassan al-Majid's infamous nickname.