BAGHDAD, March 11: A court in Iraq, which is under US occupation, on Wednesday jailed former deputy premier Tareq Aziz for 15 years and sentenced two half-brothers of former executed president Saddam Hussein to hang for crimes against humanity.

The High Tribunal also jailed Saddam’s cousin and hatchet-man “Chemical Ali” Hassan al-Majid for 15 years -- on top of three death sentences already passed against him.

Aziz and Majid were among eight people on trial over the 1992 murders of 42 Baghdad traders accused of racketeering while the country was under UN sanctions imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The two key regime figures had risked the death penalty, which was handed down to former interior minister Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan and security service chief Sabawi Ibrahim -- both half-brothers of Saddam Hussain.

Judge Rauf Rashid Abelrahman said the pair was guilty of “premeditated murder” and “crimes against humanity.” The ex-president’s private secretary Abed Hamud was given life in jail.

It was the first conviction against Aziz, 73, who was Saddam’s spokesman and apologist to the outside world for two decades. He turned himself in after the regime was overthrown by US-led invading forces in March 2003.

The only Christian in Saddam’s inner circle, silver-haired Aziz wore his trademark square-framed glasses and headphones.

He rose in the dock like each defendant to hear his fate, a smile fixed across his face.—AFP
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