Father Jean-Marie Benjamin Heads Up Tariq Azziz Defense Team

Following the request from Tareq Aziz (letter of 23 July 2004 to his family in Amman), father Jean-Marie Benjamin, for moral reasons and for justice, has accepted to coordinate the team of lawyers for the defence of the former Iraqi vice prime minister Tareq Aziz.

Since the beginning of his detention the lawyer of Tareq Aziz in Baghdad, Mr. Badie Arief Izzat, was only once authorized to go and meet his client in almost two years. According to Mr. Izzat’s information to father Benjamin, he will be authorized to meet Mr. Aziz in the next few days.

For their part, the Italian lawyers Remo di Martino (Ortona), Marcantonio Bezicheri (Bologna) and Ugo Bertaglia (Modena) have activated various procedures at:

• The High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva • The Italian Prime Minister. • The European Court of Justice.

The lawyer Marcantonio Bezicheri and father Benjamin, in the name of the defence team have solicited the intervention of the High Commission for Human Rights not only for Tareq Aziz but for the condition of imprisonment of other prisoners in Iraq. The High Commission for Human Rights in their reply of 6 January 2005 and 2 February 2005 informed us that they have activated a special procedure and created a special Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The Working Group has asked formal information at the Government of the United States and the Government of Iraq about the legal and juridical situation of Tareq Aziz. The Commission for Human Rights is waiting for the reply.

Following the letter sent on 8 November 2004 by the lawyer Remo di Martino to the Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a reply was received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dated 1 February 2005. The letter that was sent in the name of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gianfranco Fini, signed by Mr. Riccardo Sessa confirms the following: “The delicate questions you raised concern the problem of application in a specific case according to international rules included in the International Convention on civil and political rights of which Iraq and the United States are part and therefore are obliged to respect”. After having confirmed that “every prisoner has the right to meet his Iraqi legal advisor”, (up to now only once and never a foreign lawyer), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs concludes “(…) it remains advisable to look out in order that the guarantees for the condition of custody and trial continue to be observed with respect to the principles of international law”. The involvement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to “sensitize our Embassy in Baghdad in order to remind again –even with caution- the Iraqi authorities as it is in their proper interest to respect in this case as well as in other cases, the principles of justice, equity and legality”.

The Minister Rocco Buttiglione in his letter of 23 December 2004 to the lawyer Remo di Martino after having mentioned the initiatives he personally took “during the period 1999/2001 to find a solution to the problem of the United Nations Inspections” (searching for arms of mass destruction) confirms that “I had the opportunity to appreciate the humanity and the sincere interest of Tareq Aziz for a pacific solution of the conflict, such as reassuring the Western powers and to end the suffering of the Iraqi population. Tareq Aziz exposed himself personally, running personal risks (I was told) with an interview for a Western newspaper”. In his letter after having explained about other evidences, Minister Buttiglione concludes:“ (…) From discussions I have had with Tareq Aziz I noticed his conviction and sincere wish for peace and that he would do anything possible in the most difficult situation in which he was to avoid the war (…). I don’t have evidence from contacts I have then had with Iraq that there were voices of his illicit enrichment or his direct responsibility in sanguinary repressions of which his regime was responsible. (…) I think he is a man who sincerely wanted to serve his country but found himself in circumstances that rendered his efforts in vain”.

Minister Buttiglione, in a meeting with Remo di Martino said that he would be willing to go to Baghdad to testify for the defence of Tareq Aziz. Concerning the European Court of Justice, the procedure is following its due course.

Despite the fact that the notoriously anti-American Angelo Cardinal Sodano (His question to an American journalist regarding Iraq: "Haven't you people learned ANYTHING from Viet Nam?" My response: "And who liberated Rome in 1945? And whose side was Italy on until it became clear they were losing, your Eminence?") has been reconfirmed as Secretary of State, could we hope that SOMEONE at SOME LEVEL in Pope Benedict XVI's administration may, at long last, look into the activities of the notorious Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, former UN staffer, then priest, then travel companion of two consecutive Secretaries of State, Cardinals Casaroli and Sodano?

Not only is the man's website a breath-taking hodge-podge of lies and a veritable encyclopedia of anti-George Bush, anti-USA propaganda, but more troubling (OR AT LEAST IT SHOULD BE) is the fact that his name shows up in the final Duelfer Report on WMD's as having qualified for 4.5 million barrels of oil in the now outrageously notorious UN Oil for Food Scandal:

(see: http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2004/12/vatican-and-iraq.html).

It's time for conservative Catholics in the USA to let SOMEONE in Rome know what we think about this travel-junketing, guitar-strumming, CD-recording, Bush-bashing, AZZIZ-defending FRAUD. If Fr. Reese at AMERICA was causing confusion among Catholics, what are we to think of someone who, apparently with the blessing of the Secretariat of State under two Cardinal Prefects, is personal friends with the right-hand man of the "Butcher of Baghdad" - enough to coordinate his defense fund - and who shows up in the Duelfer Report (THANK GOD that FOX News has not YET got ahold of THAT scandalous tidbit!) - not to mention hob-nobbing with the disgraced Palestinian gun-runner, Archbishop Hilarion Capucci?

Culture of death, indeed!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.