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Tariq Aziz, ex-foreign minister begs
Vatican help my family
29.6.2005
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Tariq Aziz
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Baghdad, 29 June (AKI) - Iraq's former foreign
minister Tariq Aziz - who is a Christian - has made
a plea to the Vatican for financial assistance to
his family, his lawyer, Badi Izzat, told the Arab
broadcaster, Radio Sawa.
Izzat said he had passed on a letter from Aziz to a
French Catholic priest, Father Benjamin, who spent
years in Iraq as a missionary and a vocal opponent
of the economic sanctions imposed on Saddam
Hussein's Iraq. Aziz's wife, Zureida, and his two
sons fled to Jordan during the US-led invasion that
toppled Saddam.
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Since
then Aziz's family has experienced 'economic
hardship' Aziz claims. His wife appealed to the late
Pope John Paul II in September 2003 to help win his
release from US custody, saying he was not
responsible for the crimes of Saddam's regime.
Aziz has always enjoyed cordial relations with the
Vatican. In February, 2003, he met Pope John Paul II
and the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal
Sodano in Rome in attempt to gain Vatican mediation
in the stand-off between Iraq and the UN over its
alleged weapons of mass destruction. John Paul II
had made it clear that he was opposed to the planned
American war on Iraq.
Aziz surrendered after the fall of Baghdad in April
2003. He was number 25 on the US list of most-wanted
Iraqis and the 'eight of spades' in the card deck of
wanted regime officials. He was the face of Saddam's
regime best known outside Iraq and is due to stand
trial along with other leading members in an Iraqi
special tribunal.
Italian cabinet minister, Rocco Buttiglione, said
earlier this year that he was prepared to travel to
Iraq to testify for Tariq Aziz in his trial.
Buttiglione, a devout Catholic, was quoted as saying
that "I gleaned from my talks with Tariq Aziz that
he sincerely sought peace."
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