News 2005

UN questions Aziz on food-for-oil
March 2, 2005

AFP:

TAREQ Aziz, one of Saddam Hussein's jailed right-hand men, was interrogated today in Baghdad by representatives of a UN panel investigating corruption in Iraq's oil-for-food program, his
lawyer said.

Aziz also made a desperate handwritten and verbal appeal through his lawyer to be allowed to see his family.

The meeting with the three investigators lasted almost eight hours and took place at a detention facility near Baghdad's international airport in the presence of US military and government personnel and an Iraqi investigating judge, said defence lawyer Badie Aref Izzat.

"They had no right to question him like that," the lawyer said.

Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, denied any wrongdoing under the program and refused to answer some of the questions posed to him by the investigators, Mr Izzat said, without providing further details.

"Some of the information that emerged is very dangerous and involves people that are currently in power and I have to think about the interest of my client in making this public," said Mr Izzat.

An official with the Independent Inquiry Committee reached in New York by telephone refused to comment on the meeting.

Mr Izzat said the committee's representatives, who arrived one week ago, have already questioned former oil ministers Amer Rashid and Samir Najm, former central bank governor Issam Huwaish, former head of the presidential diwan (council) Ahmed Hussein al-Samarrai and Saddam's nephew Mohammed Barzan al-Tikriti.

Aziz, 68, is believed to be ready to name names in a scandal that now threatens UN chief Kofi Annan, several international figures and companies in France, Russia and other countries.

A damning interim report released by the panel in early February found Benon Sevan, who headed the program, had repeatedly asked for oil allocations from Saddam's regime.

The UN panel is led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker.

Aziz was the face of Iraq under Saddam's regime. He surrendered in April 2003 after Baghdad fell to the Americans and has since made only one brief appearance in court in July 2004.

Mr Izzat said Aziz was wearing a an old jogging suit during the meeting and appeared to have lost weight and was in fragile health since he last saw him on December 23.

He asked his lawyer to speak with Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani to put pressure on current human rights minister Bakhtiar Amin, another Kurd, to allow him to see his family.

"I am cut from my family since July 2004. No contact at all," said a note signed by Aziz and scribbled in both English and Arabic in his lawyer's agenda.

He also slipped a short letter to his lawyer addressed to his wife in Arabic.

"My health is fine, do not worry," said the letter, signed Tareq.

"Embrace all the children for me."

The US military was not immediately available for comment.

Source Link: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12418548-23109,00.html