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Tareq Aziz lawyer wants trial moved to
safety of Kurdistan
4.5.2008
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May 4, 2008
AMMAN,-- The trial of Tareq Aziz, former
Iraqi deputy premier, should be moved from Baghdad
to the relatively safe autonomous northern Iraq
Kurdistan region for security reasons, his lawyer
said on Sunday.
"I ask the Iraqi government to move the trial to
Kurdistan where the security situation is much
better than in Baghdad," Badie Aref told AFP in the
Jordanian capital, Amman.
"It will be easier for the Iraqi, Arab and foreign
defence lawyers to attend a trial in Kurdistan, and
it will be better for the detainees. The security
situation in Baghdad makes it difficult to attend
the trial," he said.
Aziz, 71, who surrendered to American troops in Iraq
in April 2003 a month after the invasion,www.ekurd.net
went on trial on April
29 on charges of executing 42 Baghdad merchants for
hiking food prices when Iraq was under tight UN
economic sanctions.
The trial at the Iraqi High Tribunal was adjourned
to May 20 after Aziz demanded a new lawyer, saying
that his counsel "Badie Aref was unable to attend
for security reasons."
Prosecutors say the businessmen were arrested in
Baghdad's wholesale markets and executed after a
speedy trial in 1992.
They also allege that the former regime then seized
the merchants' money and property.
Aziz could face the death penalty if convicted.
Aref also said he had counselled Aziz to "keep
absolute silent throughout the trial" to indicate
that "we do not recognise the legitimacy of the
tribunal." |
Tariq Aziz was the international face of Saddam's
bloody government for years
Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, an Iraqi Kurd, will
preside at the trial. He is the same judge who
sentenced Saddam Hussein to death. |
Aziz "is a diplomat and had nothing whatsoever to do
with security matters," the lawyer added.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, AFP
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