Body of Saddam’s former aide in Jordan for burial
The body of Tariq Aziz, a top diplomat under the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, has been flown to Jordan for burial, after it was reportedly snatched from the Baghdad International Airport.
The body arrived in the Jordanian capital city of Amman on Saturday and was taken to a local morgue, where Aziz’s son, Ziad, and others were present. Some supporters of Saddam's Ba'ath Party chanted outside.
The former Iraqi diplomat, who made a name for himself by defending Saddam’s regime on the international stage, died at the age of 79 in a hospital in southern Iraq on June 5.
Aziz was a public face of the Saddam regime until it was toppled in 2003. He served as Saddam’s deputy prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and as foreign minister for part of that time.
Aziz was tried in seven cases, most of which on charges of crimes against humanity related to Saddam’s atrocities against Shia political parties and Kurds. He was found guilty in five cases and sentenced to death by hanging in 2010 for persecuting Shias.
However, the 79-year-old was serving a life sentence, as former President Jalal Talabani refused to sign the execution order.
He had been taken to the hospital in the city of Nasiriyah, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad, after his medical condition worsened at the prison where he was awaiting execution.
Doctors could not save the 79-year-old at the hospital in Nasiriyah, the governor of Dhi Qar Province said, adding, “The medical staff did their best to rescue him, but they failed. It is God’s will.”
The missing body
Aziz’s daughter Zeinab said on June 11 that her father’s body went missing at the airport while en route to Jordan for burial.
Reports said that the body was snatched by a group of unknown men minutes before it was to be loaded on to a Royal Jordanian Airlines flight.
However, Aziz family lawyer, Badee Aref Ezzat, said later that the body was in the Iraqi government’s possession. “The government has been able to get the body from the unidentified men who took it.”
The government of Jordan, where most of Aziz’s family live, has given its consent to a request by his relatives to bury him in the country.
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