Sultan Hashim Ahmad Mohammed Tai was born in 1945 in #Mosul#. He was the most prominent military official in the Ba'ath regime's army and was appointed minister of defense in 1995. In 1970, he married his cousin. He had 10 children. Two girls and eight boys. The eldest, Ahmed, was born in 1975.
He took an active part in the wars between Iraq and Iran and Iraq and Kuwait. He graduated from the Military College in 1964 and then from the Staff College in 1976. When he graduated from the Staff College, he was appointed battalion commander of the 5th Brigade of the 4th Division, then brigade commander, then division commander and commander of the 4th, 5th, 15th, 18th, and 8th divisions of the Iraqi army. He attended military training in the former Soviet Union, Britain and the United States and taught at military colleges. From 1980 to 1988, he was appointed commander of the 5th Infantry Brigade of the 4th Division, then commander of the 4th Division, then commander of the 5th Corps and then commander of the 1st Corps during the war. During the Kuwait war, he served as deputy chief of staff of operations until 1993.
He led the Iraqi delegation to the 1991 ceasefire talks in Kuwait, known as the Safwan Tent, in which he approved the withdrawal and defeat of the Iraqi army.
In 1994, he was appointed governor of Nineveh.
In 1995, he was appointed chief of staff of the Iraqi army.
In 1996, he was appointed Minister of Defense and a member of the Iraqi Armed Forces Command, replacing Ali Hassan Majid.
He was arrested in September 2003 and brought to trial.
On June 24, 2007, the court sentenced him to death for crimes against humanity.
Sultan Hashim was convicted of committing and supervising the Anfal crime and the massacre of Kurdish citizens in the late 1980s.
He was scheduled to be executed on September 11, 2007, but the decision was not carried out due to opposition from the Iraqi president and vice president.[1]