Baghdad  - The Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Tuesday repeated its call for the execution of three officials from the former regime of Saddam Hussein for genocide, as a dispute over sentencing continued.

Former ministers Ali Hassan al-Majid and Sultan Hashem and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, a former army chief, were sentenced to death in 2007 for their part in the so-called Anfal campaign against Kurdish civilians and militia in 1988.

Al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam who has since been handed two more death sentences by Iraqi criminal courts, earned the name "Chemical Ali" for his use of poison gas against the Kurdish villagers of Halabja during the campaign.

Iraq's presidential council, which consists of Kurdish President Jalal Talabani as well as one Sunni and one Shiite vice-president, must approve the execution order, but has yet to do so.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, calling on the council to approve the execution order, said in a statement that "this call denounces the genocide committed against the martyrs of Halabja and their families."

The delay stems from a political dispute between the government, the presidential council, and authorities in the United States over the execution of Hashem and Mohammed.

"The Americans don't want to see Hashem executed because he is a valuable political asset in their relations with the Sunnis," said Joost Hiltermann, deputy Middle East director at the Brussels-based think-tank International Crisis Group.

"To many Sunnis, he is a hero because of his role in the Iran-Iraq war," he added. "Al-Maliki is saying it's all (al-Majid, Hashem and Mohammed) or nothing." (dpa)