For years he was the urbane, cigar-smoking face of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime who argued his boss’ case in the international corridors of power.
Tariq Aziz now faces 15 years in prison for crimes against humanity in the 1992 execution of Iraqi merchants — his first conviction for his role in the ousted regime.
The silver-haired former foreign minister, deputy prime minister and Saddam insider blinked frequently on Wednesday as the judge read the verdict — guilty on four counts of crimes against humanity, including complicity in murder and torture.
Aziz, wearing a blue jacket, black shirt and his trademark thick, black-rimmed glasses, stood silently. When the judge finished, Aziz quietly asked if he could sit down. The request was granted.
He sat with his eyes shut as other defendants rose to hear their sentences.
Two of Saddam’s half-brothers, former interior minister Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and former director of public security Sabawi Ibrahim, were sentenced to death in the merchants’ case.
Saddam’s cousin “Chemical Ali” al-Majid, who already faces three death sentences from previous cases, also got a 15-year prison sentence.
Three other defendants received sentences of life in prison, 15 years and six years. Former central bank governor Issam Rashid Hweish was acquitted for lack of evidence.
The defendants were accused of involvement in the July 1992 roundup of 42 merchants accused by Saddam of being behind a sharp increase in food prices when the country was suffering hardships under sanctions.
The merchants were arrested over two days in Baghdad’s wholesale markets and charged with manipulating food supplies to drive up prices. They were executed hours later after a quick trial.
Prosecutors had argued that Aziz was complicit because he was a member of the ruling Revolutionary Command Council that rubber-stamped Saddam’s decisions.
After hearing his death sentence, Ibrahim shouted: “Long live Iraq. Down with the occupier.”
“I am proud to be one of Iraq’s martyrs and to join the martyr Saddam Hussein,” he said.
But Aziz, a fluent English-speaker and the only Christian in Saddam’s mostly Sunni Muslim inner circle, displayed none of the bravado or self assurance that he showed when representing Iraq at the UN and world capitals.
Instead, it was left to his lawyer and relatives to speak out on his behalf.
Defense attorney Badee Izzat Aref said he would appeal and that Aziz was traveling in Europe when the executions occurred.
“My client had no role in the execution of the traders. He spent most of his time on diplomatic missions outside Iraq and he was removed from domestic issues,” Aref said.
Aziz joined Saddam’s Baath Party when he was 21 years old and worked for years as a journalist. A loyal party member, he changed his name from Mikhail Yuhanna to a more Arabic-sounding Tariq Aziz and rose through the party ranks to the ruling Revolutionary Command Council in 1977.
He became deputy prime minister in 1979. A year later, he survived an assassination attempt by Shiite militants — an attack that was used to justify in part Saddam’s invasion of Iran in 1980, triggering an eight-year war.
Aziz became internationally known as the dictator’s defender and a fierce US critic as foreign minister after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War.
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