Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, was sentenced to death in Baghdad on Sunday, the fourth such sentence for the man notoriously known as Chemical Ali.

Al-Majid was handed the punishment for his involvement in the poison gas attack on the northern Kurdish town of Halabja in which over 5,000 children, women and men died.

Hussein appointed Al-Majid as governor of Northern Iraq and charged him with carrying out the deadly attack on March 16, 1988.

Like the previous three death sentences, Sunday's decision from the court was for crimes against humanity in Iraq.

The previous three have not been carried out, in part because survivors of the gas attack wanted to have their case against al-Majid heard.

Families of some of the victims cheered in court when the guilty verdict was handed down.

Other officials in Saddam's regime received jail terms for their roles in the attack on Halabja, a Kurdish town near the Iranian border.

Former defence minister Sultan Hashim al-Taie faces 15 years in prison, as does Iraq's former director of military intelligence, Sabir Azizi al-Douri.

Al-Majid has already been convicted of killing tens of thousands of Kurds in a crackdown in the late 1980s, and for the killings of Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999.

With files from The Associated Press