AMMAN, 12 August 2004 — Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz has authorized his family to hire lawyers to defend him against two capital charges of mass murder, his son Ziad said yesterday.
The letter dated July 1, the same day Aziz was hauled into the dock in Baghdad along with 10 other former henchmen of Saddam Hussein, did not reach his family in the Jordanian capital until last Thursday after being vetted by US military censors.
Aziz wrote that “at a preliminary hearing on June 30, the Baghdad court formerly charged me with two counts of mass murder in 1979 and 1991”.
“These accusations are totally false and are punishable by death under Article 111 of the Iraqi penal code,” Ziad quoted his father as saying. Aziz asked his son to instruct a lawyer called Shawkat Shabib “to either represent me himself or name another lawyer of his choice.”
He also asked him to “liaise with Shawkat to contact (French lawyer Jacques) Verges, (former US attorney general) Ramsey Clark and (former UNICEF official) Jean-Marie Benjamin”.
“Try to form a defense team including Iraq, Arab and foreign lawyers to defend me against these baseless accusations,” he wrote. Aziz urged his family not to worry about him. “My health is good and my morale normal.” One of 55 former Iraqi officials posted on a most-wanted list by US-led forces following their invasion, Aziz surrendered in April last year and has been in US custody ever since.
Meanwhile, at least two Britons have taken up arms in Najaf on the side of Moqtada Sadr, and they say there are more foreigners like them in the Iraqi cleric’s militia in Najaf, The Times reported in London yesterday.
“It is our country and there are invaders here,” the older of the two Iraqi-born Britons told the newspaper’s correspondent in Najaf. “We have taken the side of Moqtada Sadr because we believe it is the right side.”
The Times said the two men, an uncle and nephew just two years apart in age, spoke in “distinctive London accents” and refused to identify themselves beyond their noms de guerre.
Neither had weapons training or military experience, but within hours of arriving in Najaf they found themselves guarding the city’s sacred Imam Ali shrine, it said.
