Iraq’s Aziz gets family call, Saddam trial nears

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s imprisoned former deputy prime
minister Tareq Aziz took a 10-minute phone call from his family
on Thursday, his first such contact in over two years, and will
receive a visit from them next week, his lawyer said.

With the trial of his former leader Saddam Hussein probably
less than two months away, according to a source close to the
Iraqi Special Tribunal which is trying him for crimes against
humanity, Aziz said through his attorney on Wednesday that he
would not testify against the ousted president.

Lawyer Badia Aref said Aziz had spoken with his family on
the telephone from the U.S.-run facility near Baghdad where he
is being held along with Saddam and other senior members of the
administration overthrown by U.S. forces in April 2003.

He would receive his first visit on Aug. 21, Aref said. It
is not clear whether others among the key defendants have
received such visits in the past and there has been no word
that Saddam himself has seen members of his family, now in
exile.

The reasons were not clear for the apparent concessions
made to Aziz, once the urbane face of Saddam’s government to
the outside world.

The source close to the tribunal said on Thursday that
investigating magistrates were making good progress on a number
of cases, as well as that of the killings at Dujail, for which
Saddam was charged last month and will face trial soon.

That case, involving dozens of Shi’ite villagers killed
after an assassination attempt on Saddam in 1982, is less
sweeping than some of the cases the former president faces,
such as the massacres of Kurds in the late 1980s and of Shi’ite
rebels in 1991. But prosecutors believe it may be easier to
prove his personal responsibility in the Dujail killings.

The possibility that the tribunal timetable could be
delayed by complaints from politicians that some of its judges
were former members of Saddam’s ruling Baath party appeared to
have receded, the source told reporters at a briefing.