Frail-looking Aziz gives lively defense of Saddam
BAGHDAD, Iraq – It was a stark contrast for Tariq Aziz, who once walked the halls of the United Nations in designer suits with a cigar in his mouth. On the witness stand Wednesday, the ailing 70-year-old was pale and hoarse, and wore faded pajamas with a checkered print.
Still, Aziz gave a lively defense of his former boss, Saddam Hussein, and became what amounts to a star witness in a trial marked by testimony from a string of unknown figures.
Iraqis tuned in to the televised trial to watch the man who was once the most prominent face of Saddam’s regime but has been unseen since being jailed by the Americans during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“Saddam was my colleague and comrade for decades,” Aziz pronounced.
He then tried to make a compelling case that Saddam had no choice but to crack down in the Shiite town of Dujail after a July 8, 1982, shooting attack on his motorcade there, blamed on the Shiite Dawa Party backed by Iran. Iraq was at war with Iran at the time.
Hundreds of men, women and children were arrested by security forces after the assassination attempt. Some prisoners allegedly were tortured to death and 148 Shiites were ordered sent to the gallows by Saddam’s Revolutionary Court for alleged roles in the attempt.
Saddam and his seven co-defendants could be hanged if convicted of crimes against humanity for their involvement in the crackdown.
“It was an assassination attempt against the president, and this party also tried to assassinate me in 1980,” Aziz said. “If the head of state comes under attack, the state is required by law to take action. If the suspects are caught with weapons, it’s only natural they should be arrested and put on trial.”
It was, in effect, an attempt to do what he always did as Saddam’s foreign minister and deputy prime minister: present the regime’s case to the world.
“His role was always to make Saddam look reasonable, and he was still playing that role,” said Michael Scharf, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland who helped train judges and prosecutors in the Saddam tribunal.
Aziz also turned the tables and insisted Iraq’s current prime minister – Dawa leader Nouri al-Maliki – should be on trial, saying the group tried to kill him and Saddam in the 1980s.
“I’m a victim of a criminal act conducted by this party, which is in power right now. So put it on trial. Its leader was the prime minister and his deputy is the prime minister right now, and they killed innocent Iraqis in 1980,” said Aziz.
The defense has been making its case for two weeks. A series of defense witnesses took the stand Wednesday – including former Saddam bodyguards – and testified that the Dujail shooting was a serious attack on the then-president.
One bodyguard, Abed Abdel-Hameed Mahmoud al-Tikriti, said a woman put a bloody handprint on Saddam’s car to mark it for attack, so Saddam was put into a different car.
Aziz insisted Saddam did not bring up Dujail during later government meetings and never ordered co-defendants Barzan Ibrahim, the former Mukhabarat intelligence chief, or Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Revolutionary Command Council member, to carry out the wave of arrests in Dujail.
Aziz’s lawyers and family say he has heart problems and have been pressing for the U.S. military to free him or allow him to get treatment abroad, though American officials have insisted he gets adequate care in prison.
The pajamas he wore in the witness stand – along with what looked like a plastic hospital bracelet on his wrist – may have been chosen to emphasize his poor health and help his case for release.