Lawyer says he has Iraq okay to see Tareq Aziz in prison
AFP
AMMAN- The Jordan-based lawyer of Iraq's jailed former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz said on Saturday that he has secured Baghdad's permission to visit his client in prison.
Lawyer Badih Aref has voiced concern that Aziz's life was in danger following his transfer from US to Iraqi custody on Tuesday night as Washington prepares to hand over its last prison facility in Iraq.
"I will travel to Baghdad in two days to meet my client and several other detainees," Aref told AFP.
He said he had requested permission for the visit from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as well as guarantees of safe passage in the light of his detention and deportation from Iraq in April 2007.
"I received a positive response yesterday (Friday) from justice ministry secretary general Busho Ibrahim," he said.
Aziz was among 26 convicts, several of them prominent members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, who were moved to the Iraqi-run Kadhimiyah jail in north Baghdad ahead of Washington's handover on Thursday of its Camp Cropper detention facility at the airport.
"He should have been released," Aref told AFP on Wednesday. "What the Americans did violates the Red Cross code because they handed him over to his enemies. His life is in danger now."
Aziz, 73, turned himself in to US forces in April 2003 and is one of Saddam's few surviving top cohorts.
He was appointed deputy premier in 1991, having previously served as foreign minister. In 2009, he was jailed for 15 years for murder and given a seven-year term in August 2009 for his role in expelling Kurds from Iraq's north.
Aziz's family has repeatedly called for his release on health grounds.
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He said he had requested permission for the visit from the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as well as guarantees of safe passage in the light of his detention and deportation from Iraq in April 2007.
"I received a positive response yesterday (Friday) from justice ministry secretary general Busho Ibrahim," he said.
Aziz was among 26 convicts, several of them prominent members of Saddam Hussein's ousted regime, who were moved to the Iraqi-run Kadhimiyah jail in north Baghdad ahead of Washington's handover on Thursday of its Camp Cropper detention facility at the airport.
"He should have been released," Aref told AFP on Wednesday. "What the Americans did violates the Red Cross code because they handed him over to his enemies. His life is in danger now."
Aziz, 73, turned himself in to US forces in April 2003 and is one of Saddam's few surviving top cohorts.
He was appointed deputy premier in 1991, having previously served as foreign minister. In 2009, he was jailed for 15 years for murder and given a seven-year term in August 2009 for his role in expelling Kurds from Iraq's north.
Aziz's family has repeatedly called for his release on health grounds.
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