By Michael Howard in Halabja

Guardian News Service: A hush descended over the crowd gathered at the Halabja Chemical Victims' Society as the face of Ali Hassan al Majid emerged through the fuzz of the badly tuned television. There, finally in the dock, was the man who for three years in the late 1980s had been the chief tormentor of Iraq's Kurds, and who had on March 16, 1988, presided over the gassing to death 5,000 citizens of this heartbreaking little town on Iraq's northeastern border with Iran.

It had to be good news, everyone in the sweltering room agreed, that Majid was about to be convicted of genocide. "Of course we are happy," said Alwan Ali Mahmoud, a teacher who at the age of eight was orphaned and lost11 other family members in the attack. "Kurds have waited for justice for so long that we can't quite believe it is happening," she said. She is still receiving treatment for eye injuries sustained at the time.

Mohammed Faraj Said, a local civil servant, who lost seven members of his immediate family, agreed: "This will help the world to recognise what was done to try to destroy our nation."

But as the judge read through the verdicts of the six accused, the mood among this group of Halabja survivors was far from celebratory. The reason, said Luqman Mohammed, the society's director, was that the notorious massacre at Halabja was not included in the charges laid against ChemicalAli.

The chemical blitz was seen as separate from the Anfal campaign, the focus of yesterday's convictions. "Halabja is worried it will never see its day in court," Mr Mohammed said.

Their concerns may not be misplaced. After the length and huge costs of the Dujail and Anfal trials, some are questioning whether Iraq's government and the controversial special tribunal has the stomach or the funds to complete trying Saddam-era officials. Originally, the late dictator and his cohorts were to face charges on up 11 different cases. "And Halabja at the top of the list," said Mr Mohammed. With Saddam now executed, and the insurgency still raging, enthusiasm among Iraqis and in the international community for yet more trials has waned. But here in Halabja, the interest is still very real.

Since the traumas of 1988, little has been done to rehabilitate its victims. Halabja's infrastructure is a disgrace. Many houses are little better than concrete shacks and sewage still flows in many streets.

The struggle for control of the town between Kurdish nationalist parties and Islamist groups before the war in 2003 hasn't helped. Last year, a monument that the regional Kurdish government erected to mark the gasattack in the town was trashed as angry residents protested that basicservices meant more to them than memorials.

Since then a new mayor has begun to pave the roads. He says that this year Halabja has a $16m budget. But laying a wreath yesterday at the "Halabja martyrs' cemetery", Luqman Mohammed wondered whether it would beenough to stop Halaba victims being forgotten.

Bakhtiar Amin, a former Iraqi human rights minister and activist for the victims of Halabja, said: "This verdict of genocide is important in itself. But it also obliges the Iraqi government and those who helped SaddamHussein and Chemical Ali ... to provide moral, physical and financialrecompense."