Posted on 12/13/2003 6:40:32 PM PST by blam
Tariq Aziz asks 'Devil's Advocate' for help at trial
By Colin Freeman in Baghdad and Kim Willsher
(Filed: 14/12/2003)
The family of Tariq Aziz has approached a celebrated French defence lawyer nicknamed the Devil's Advocate to defend the former Iraqi deputy prime minister at the forthcoming war crimes tribunal in Baghdad.
Tariq Aziz: 'victim of Saddam'
Mr Aziz's daughter, Zeinab, wants Jacques Verges, who has defended the international terrorist Carlos the Jackal and the Gestapo officer Klaus Barbie, to represent her father when he is tried over his role in Saddam Hussein's regime.
Her move follows last week's announcement that Iraq's US-appointed governing council has established a war crimes tribunal to prosecute hundreds of former Saddam associates for genocide and crimes against humanity. Mr Aziz is expected to be among the first to face trial.
In an interview with the Telegraph, Zeinab Aziz castigated the new tribunal as "victors' justice" and said it would deny her 67-year-old father the chance of a fair hearing.
"What is his crime?" she asked. "Serving his country as well as he could? If he ever killed anybody, we would know about it. False information was spread about my father by people exiled from Iraq. These new trials are supposed to be just and free from vengeance, but it seems that some people will decide the verdict beforehand."
Mr Verges, a former French Resistance fighter who later campaigned against colonialism, is renowned in France for the relish with which he defends clients with blackened reputations - including the former Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic. The lawyer once declared: "To defend Satan would be the proudest moment of my career."
Yesterday Mr Verges was unavailable for comment, but his staff did not deny he had been contacted about Mr Aziz.
For more than two decades, Mr Aziz was Saddam Hussein's envoy to the world, cultivating an urbane image as an English-speaking Christian with a taste for fine wines and good Havana cigars.
His daughter said: "He was just a spokesman for Saddam, and was trying to serve the country when it was in a very bad situation. If he had refused to do his job, he would have been killed like anybody else.
"Some of the others did horrible things to the Iraqi people and they should be put on trial. But all the world knows the difference between my father and them."
Although the British Government has identified Aziz as a definite candidate for trial, many ordinary Iraqis believe he should be released. "Many people here think of Aziz as a decent man, he wasn't like the others," said Sabah Kadom, a security consultant.
The Aziz family have had no contact with him since April 24, when he surrendered to US forces at his Baghdad home, expecting to be released after questioning.
Reports that his health had broken under the strain of the harsh prison regime have alarmed the family. A statement from the US military in November declaring Aziz was in a "stable" condition provided little comfort.
"We have had no news from the prison since October," said Zeinab. "He has sent us letters through the Red Cross saying 'I am in fairly good health', but we are worried, because he had two heart attacks before he was taken away.
"We know he has lost weight - he asked for clothes in smaller sizes because his old ones don't fit."
The Aziz family now live modestly in a Baghdad suburb that is home to many Christian families. Mr Aziz's own home was looted and is now occupied by an Islamic political party.
Zeinab claimed the family were also victims of the regime. "We were as afraid of Saddam as anybody: my brother Ziad was put in jail when he fell out with Saddam's family. My father was not the kind of person who asked for favours."
The image of Aziz as a harmless functionary is disputed by Ann Clwyd, Tony Blair's special envoy on human rights to Iraq, however. She says it is "essential" that he stand trial for involvement in crimes such as gassing the Kurds and the taking of British hostages during the first Gulf war.
Do you really need to read any further?
The lawyer should share the ultimate fate of Azziz.
Both go free, get imprisoned, or both get hung (shredded?) in public.
"Birds of a feather, flock together".
The lawyer will probably demand that the trial be held in the French language.
No spill his guts...........take him out and shoot the bastard!!
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