BAGHDAD - One of Saddam Hussein's most well-known and loyal lieutenants accused Iraq's Shiite-led government Tuesday of seeking revenge as he and seven other former regime officials faced trial for the 1992 executions of dozens of Baghdad merchants.
Tariq Aziz told an Iraqi court, which resumed hearing the case against him and his co-defendants, that he was proud of being a member of Saddam's Sunni-dominated Baath party and serving under the former dictator.
But chief prosecutor Adnan Ali said Aziz and his co-defendants, who include Saddam's cousin known as "Chemical Ali," were responsible for the merchants' deaths and urged the court "to issue the suitable punishment that will ease the hearts of widows and oppressed ones."
The trial deals with the execution of 42 merchants accused by Saddam's government of being behind a sharp increase in food prices when the country was under strict UN sanctions.
The merchants were rounded up over two days in July 1992 from Baghdad's wholesale markets and charged with manipulating food supplies to drive up prices at a time when many Iraqis were suffering economically. All 42 were executed hours later after a quick trial.
Aziz's trial is the fourth to be held for former regime officials since Saddam was ousted by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and he could be the last high-profile Saddam era figure to face prosecution for alleged atrocities.
In outlining the case, Ali said the eight men were charged with crimes against humanity, which means they could be sentenced to death if convicted.
The prosecutor called the executions of the merchants "a systematic campaign planned under the cover of darkness" and said the defendants were responsible because they were members of the Revolutionary Command Council, a rubber stamp group that approved the dictator's decisions.
"Those tribunals held their hearings at night and did not allow the defendants to have lawyers or bring any documents that could help their case," he said.
Addressing the judge, Aziz, denied the allegations and said his trial was based on personal vendettas and he was proud of his membership in the RCC as well as the former ruling Baath party and other committees under Saddam. The 72-year-old has refused to testify against Saddam in previous trials.
"Concentrating on the membership of the Revolutionary Command Council is meant as revenge," he said. "I know it is a plot of personal revenge."
The trial opened on April 29 but was quickly adjourned because Chemical Ali, whose real name is Ali Hassan al-Majid, was too ill to attend. The U.S. military, which has custody of the defendants, said Monday that he had been cleared to attend the proceedings. Both he and Aziz leaned on canes as they walked into the courtroom Tuesday.
Al-Majid, who became known as Chemical Ali for chemical attacks against the Kurds in the 1980s, has already been sentenced to death along with two others in another case. The executions have been stalled due to disputes over details.
Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam's mostly Sunni Muslim coterie, became internationally known as the dictator's defender and a fierce American critic after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War.
He was later promoted to deputy prime minister and often represented Iraq at the United Nations and other international forums. Just weeks before the U.S.-led invasion, Aziz met with the late Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in a bid to head off the conflict.
Presiding over the trial was judge Raouf Abdul-Rahman, who sentenced Saddam to death in May 2006 for his role in the killing of Shiite Muslims in the town of Dujail after an assassination attempt in 1982.
Saddam was hanged the following December while on trial in a second case, stemming from the brutal crackdown on ethnic Kurds in the late 1980s. Chemical Ali was sentenced to death in that case.
A third trial is under way for officials accused of crushing a Shiite uprising that followed the 1991 Gulf War.
