Devout Moslem Tariq Aziz due on trial in Iraq - Former Iraqi Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz is due to go on trial over the deaths of a
group of Baghdad merchants [Moslems] in 1992.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7372356.stm
Mr Aziz, along with seven other former members of Saddam Hussein's
regime, is accused of involvement in the executions of about 40 merchants.
The merchants were accused of hiking food prices at a time when Iraq was
under international sanctions.
They were executed after a speedy trial.
One of the co-accused is Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as "Chemical
Ali".
Ali Hassan al-Majid is already on death row after being convicted last
year of leading a campaign in the late 1980s in which tens of thousands
of Iraqi Kurdish civilians were killed.
Another of Mr Aziz's co-accused is Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Watban
Ibrahim al-Hassan.
Mr Aziz's son, Ziad, has said that his father is innocent.
"My father told me personally that he had nothing to do with this case.
At the time, my father was on an official assignment outside of Iraq,"
he told the AFP news agency.
"None of the families of these merchants filed suits against my father."
Mr Aziz received hospital treatment last year after falling in prison,
while in 2006 he suffered a stroke.
He was taken into custody in April 2003 after he gave himself up to US
forces.
The trial will be conducted by the Iraqi High Tribunal, which was set up
to try former members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Mr Aziz is expected to
appear in court in person, tribunal spokesman Areef Shaheen has told the
BBC.
The trial would be conducted in a similar way to previous cases, with
the court first hearing from complainants, then from witnesses, and
finally from the defendants, the spokesman said.
Saddam Hussein was executed in December 2006 after being convicted of
crimes against humanity over the killing of 148 ****a men and boys after
a 1982 assassination attempt against him.
Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, an Iraqi Kurd, will preside at Mr
Aziz's trial. He is the same judge who sentenced Saddam Hussein to death.
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