SADDAM Hussein's former foreign minister Tariq Aziz has been sentenced to death by hanging. Aziz who was for years the public face of tyrant Saddam's regime and its only Christian member was handed the sentence by Iraq's Supreme Court.
The 74-year-old faces death after being convicted for his role in a Saddam-led campaign that hunted and executed members of the Shiite Dawa Party, according to reports in Iraq.
Convicted ... Tariq was the public face of Saddam's regime Convicted ... Tariq was the public face of Saddam's regime
An Iraqi state television report said: "The supreme criminal court issued an execution order against Tariq Aziz for his role in eliminating religious parties."
Aziz reported to be seriously ill having suffered a stroke served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister and was a close adviser to Saddam.
Officials said two other defendants in the case were also sentenced to death former interior minister Sadoun Shakir and former private secretary Abed Hamoud.
Saddam, a Sunni Muslim, crushed all attempts to establish rival political groups in the 1980s and 1990s.
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He targeted Shia Muslim parties, including the Dawa party of which current Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is a member.
Court spokesman Mohammed Abdul Sahib did not say when the death sentences would be carried out.
There is a right of appeal and the sentences must be confirmed by the presidential council.
Aziz surrendered to US troops in 2003 shortly after the fall of Baghdad.
In 2009 he was jailed for a total of 22 years for the executions of 42 Iraqi merchants and the displacement of Kurds from oil-rich north-east Iraq in Saddam's reign.
Saddam was executed by hanging in 2006 for crimes against humanity.
Poster Comment:
I think Rumsfeld should get the same sentence.