The start of the trial of Tariq Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein’s best-known lieutenants, was delayed for several hours yesterday because of “organizational and procedural measures,” the presiding judge said.
Aziz is one of eight defendants facing charges in a case dating back to 1992 when the government executed 42 merchants for profiteering. Other defendants include Saddam’s half-brother Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and the dictator’s cousin known as “Chemical Ali,” who faces a pending death sentence in another case.
An official said Chemical Ali, whose full name is Ali Hassan al-Majid, was ill and would not attend the new trial. He is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release the information.
The US military said yesterday that al-Majid was under medical care at a US detention facility after suffering a heart attack earlier this month.
The trial had been scheduled to open at 10:15am, but was pushed back to 5pm.
Judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman said this was because of “organizational and procedural measures,” because the defendants had not been brought to the courthouse on time.
The trial deals with the execution of 42 merchants accused by Saddam’s government of being behind a sharp increase in food prices when the country was under strict UN sanctions.
The merchants were rounded up over two days in July 1992 from Baghdad’s wholesale markets and charged with manipulating food supplies to drive up prices at a time when many Iraqis were suffering economically. All 42 were executed hours later after a quick trial.
Another judge with the Iraqi High Tribunal, which is prosecuting offenses of the former regime, said the charges against the defendants would include war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. If convicted, the men face a sentence of death by hanging.
The judge — who declined to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the information — said Aziz was being prosecuted because he signed the execution orders against the merchants as a member of Saddam’s Revolutionary Command Council, a rubber stamp group that approved the dictator’s decisions.
Aziz, 72, was the only Christian among Saddam’s mostly Sunni Muslim inner coterie.
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