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Iraq's Aziz gets family call, Saddam trial nears

Posted on: Thursday, 11 August 2005, 14:46 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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