Tariq Aziz given additional 10-year jail term for persecution of Shia Kurds
Saddam Hussein's right-hand man spared second death sentence as Iraq's president again backs clemency calls
Tariq Aziz was today given a further 10-year jail sentence, adding to the 15-year term he is already serving and a death sentence for crimes he committed as Saddam Hussein's right-hand man.
However, Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, again appeared to back a push for clemency, repeating that he would not sign a warrant condemning Aziz.
Aziz, 74, a former Ba'athist henchman who is now in failing health, has attracted support from unlikely quarters as the ghosts of Saddam's 30-year rule are exorcised in a series of trials in Baghdad.
Today's verdict related to a charge that he had participated in the persecution of Shia Kurds during the Iran-Iraq war. Two of Saddam's half-brothers were found not guilty.
Aziz was spared a death sentence because his involvement in attacks on a Kurdish sect, known as Faili, was found to be less than other co-accused.
Mohammed Abdul Saheb, a spokesman for Iraq's high criminal court, said: "Today a judge found Tariq Aziz guilty and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. The evidence was enough to convict him of displacing and killing Faili Kurds. Aziz was a member of the revolutionary command council which cancelled the Iraqi nationality for the Faili Kurds." He added that the verdict would be sent to the appeal court, which has 30 days to hear it.
Several other trials still await Aziz, among them a charge that he participated in the killing of the opposition movement figure Talib al-Suhail, and the family of former Kurdish guerilla leader Massoud Barazani, now president of an autonomous zone in Iraq's Kurdish north.
Talabani has said he would not sign a death warrant for Aziz, citing his age and the fact that he is Christian. Aziz also has a backer in the prime minister, Iyad Allawi, who is likely to assume a role as a national security policy co-ordinator in an Iraqi government that is due to take shape within the next fortnight.
