|
Saddam's deputy PM , Tareq Aziz, sentenced to death |
|
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the
content of news information on this page |
|
Saddam's deputy PM , Tareq Aziz, sentenced
to death
26.10.2010
|
|
|
|
Tariq Aziz was the international face of Saddam's
bloody government for years. Life photo
October 26, 2010
BAGHDAD,—
The Supreme Criminal Court has issued a decision on
Tuesday for the execution of three of Iraq’s former
high-ranking officials during former President
Saddam Hussein’s regime, including former Deputy
Prime Minister, Tareq Aziz, according to the
semi-official Iraqiya TV Channel.
“The Supreme Criminal Court has issued a decision to
execute three leading members of the former (Iraqi)
regime, charged with the elimination of the
religious parties, including former Deputy Prime
Minister, Tariq Aziz,” the Iraqiya TV Channel said,
adding that the two other former officials were
former Interior Minister, Sadoun Shaker and Saddam
Hussein’s Office Chief, Abed Hamid Hmoud.
Tareq Aziz, 74, was the
only Christian member in Saddam Hussein’s
leadership, who handed himself up to the U.S. troops
after their occupation of Iraq in April, 2003, and had been among very
few membersof Saddam’s regime who escaped death till
this date.
Tareq Aziz is looked upon by the world at large as
having been the leading spokesman in the name of
Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime, as he held the
post of deputy prime minister in 1991,www.ekurd.netafter
holding the foreign minister’s post for a long time.
Aziz had charged U.S. President, Barrak Obama, with
“having left Iraq for the wolves,” when Obama issued
his decision to pull out the U.S. combat troops,
despite the escalation of terrorism in Iraq
recently.
He had also been sentenced for 15 years under
charges of having contributed in the execution of 15
Iraqi merchants, during the previous regime, along
with another 7-year sentence for his role in forcing
large numbers of Iraqi Kurds to leave their home
towns in northern Iraq.
Born in the northern town of Sinjar on February 1,
1936, Aziz was from a Chaldean Catholic family. He
changed his given name, Michael Yuhanna, to allay
any Arab nationalist hostility to his Christian
background.
Aziz had known Saddam -- who was toppled in the
invasion and then executed under the
Shiite-dominated new regime -- since the 1950s but
was kept outside the closed Sunni circle of the
president's clansmen from the town of Tikrit.
Aziz became internationally known as the dictator's
defender and a fierce American critic first as
foreign minister after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in
1990 and later as a deputy prime minister. His
meeting with Secretary of State James A. Baker in
Geneva in January 1991 failed to prevent the 1991
Gulf War. Aziz also met with the late Pope John Paul
II at the Vatican weeks before the March 2003
U.S.-led invasion in a bid to head off that
conflict.
Iraq has executed a number of high-profile members
of Saddam's regime, including "Chemical Ali" al-Majid,
Saddam's cousin, who earned his nickname for
atrocities such as the deaths of an estimated 5,000
Kurds in a poison gas attack in 1988.
Saddam was taunted by onlookers as he went to the
gallows in December 2006, at the height of the
sectarian violence, shocking many observers in and
outside the country and raising allegations the
Shiite-led government was bent on revenge.
Aziz was on trial in a long-running case in which he
is accused of being part of a campaign of
persecuting, killing and torturing members of the
Shiite opposition and the banned religious parties,
like the Shiite Dawa Party, of which Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki is a member.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for taking
part in forced displacement and 10 years for
committing torture. Judge Mahmoud Saleh al-Hassan
declared the harshest punishment — death by hanging
— for participating in deliberate killings but gave
no details.
Aziz was one of five members of the deposed regime
who were convicted Tuesday of similar crimes. A
sixth defendant, Saddam's half brother, Watban
Ibrahim al-Hassan, was found innocent because of
lack of evidence, the judge said. Al-Hassan served
as interior minister.
Aziz has already been convicted and sentenced to 15
years in prison for his role in the 1992 execution
of 42 merchants found guilty of profiteering. He
also received a seven-year prison sentence for a
case involving the forced displacement of Kurds in
northern Iraq.
If the Appeals' Court upholds the death sentence,
the law says Aziz should be hung within 30 days of
the final decision. The Iraqi president also needs
to sign off on an execution order.
Aziz predicted in a recent interview with the AP
that he will die in prison, citing his old age and
lengthy prison sentences.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
aswataliraq.info | AP | Agencies
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
|
|
®
