Former Iraqi Foreign Minister to Hang
VOA News
26 October 2010
One of the most prominent figures of Saddam Hussein's regime has been sentenced to die by hanging.
Iraq's top criminal court issued the sentence Tuesday for former foreign minister Tariq Aziz for his role in the persecution of Shi'ite political parties.
Aziz had been charged with helping to kill, imprison or exile leaders of the Islamic Dawa party of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The death sentence is the first for Aziz, who is already serving a 15-year prison sentence for the execution of 42 merchants in 1992. He was sentenced to another seven years for the forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq.
Aziz has said he is guilty of nothing more than being a loyalist. He says he, personally, committed no crime.
Aziz surrendered to U.S. troops in 2003. Saddam Hussein, his former boss, was captured in Iraq in 2003 and executed by the interim Iraqi government in 2006.
In an interview with the British Guardian newspaper earlier this year, Aziz said the U.S. invasion of Iraq had "killed" his homeland.
The Iraqi court said two other defendants in the case were also sentenced to death.
Sadoun Shakir is Iraq's former interior minister. Abed Hamoud served as Saddam Hussein's personal secretary.
Also Tuesday, a bomb targeting an Iraqi deputy planning minister wounded at least three people in Baghdad.
A separate bombing north of Baghdad killed six members of an Iraqi army patrol.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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