Tariq Aziz

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Tariq Aziz (2014)
Tariq Aziz (right) with Ronald Reagan , 1984

Tariq Aziz ( Arabic طارق عزيز, DMG Ṭāriq ʿAzīz ; Syriac-Aramaic ܜܪܩ ܥܙܝܙ , the spellings Tareq Mikhail Aziz , Tarik Mikhail Asis or Tarek Aziz , actually Tariq Mikhail Youhanna , are also in circulation ; * April 28, 1936 or July 1, 1936 in Mosul or Tel Keppe ; †  June 5, 2015 in Nasiriya ) was Foreign Minister from 1983 to 1991 and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq from 1979 to 2003 . He was a close advisor to President Saddam Hussein for many years and, as a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church, was the only Christian member of the Iraqi leadership.

Life

Aziz was born as Mīchāʾīl Yūḥannā into a Chaldean Catholic family from the village of Tal Kaif near Mosul. His father was a waiter.

He studied English at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Baghdad and received a bachelor's degree in English language and literature in 1958 . During his studies he also made the acquaintance of Saddam Hussein. To advance his career it helped that he was not very religious and instead defined himself as a secular Arab. That is why he gave up his Christian name.

Political career

Aziz became editor-in-chief of the newspaper Al-Jumhuriya ( The Republic ) after the revolution of Abd al-Karim Qasim in 1958 . After the Ba'ath Party lost power in 1963, he went into exile in Syria . There he worked in the official party press. In 1966 he was imprisoned after a palace revolution within the Syrian Ba'ath Party because he was hostile to the putschists who came from the ranks of the military . After the Ba'ath Party seized power in Iraq in 1968, Aziz returned to his homeland. He took over the management of the central organ of the Al-Thauwra regime ( The Revolution ).

Aziz with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on July 26, 2000

From 1974 he was Minister of Information, from 1977 he was a member of the Revolutionary Command Council and the regional command of the party. On April 1, 1980, members of the Shiite Dawa party carried out an assassination attempt on him in Baghdad , which he survived with minor injuries. From 1983 to 1991 he was Foreign Minister before he was replaced by Ahmad Hussein al-Khudayir . From 1979 to 2003 he was also Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq. Aziz became particularly known during the Gulf Crisis after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the run-up to the Second Gulf War . When his meeting with US Secretary of State James Baker in Geneva on January 9, 1991 came to an unsuccessful end, the war was considered inevitable.

As a Christian, he acted as the regime's moderate figurehead abroad. In addition, Aziz protected his identity as a member of the Christian minority from Saddam Hussein's ubiquitous paranoia, as he would not have been able to form connections in the clan system of the majority Muslim Iraqis that would have allowed him a serious position of power. Aziz himself did not command massive repression operations during Saddam Hussein's rule. However, he publicly justified the regime's cruelty. He justified the public display of Iraqi Jews condemned as Israeli spies as well as the murder of communists, dissidents and Kurds.

Iraq war

Fifteen days after the collapse of the Ba'ath regime as a result of the war in Iraq , on April 24, 2003, Aziz surrendered to the war coalition led by the Americans . Since then, he has been in US detention with the consent of the Iraqi government until he was transferred to the Iraqi authorities in July 2010. Immediately after his arrest in 2003, his family members expressed confidence that he would be released soon. Neither requests for help from the French government nor from the then Pope brought the hoped-for exemption from prison. In January 2006 Aziz applied for asylum to the Italian and Croatian governments through his lawyers in the event of his release. While the Italians agreed to examine the application in due course, Croatia refused. In January 2010, Aziz suffered a stroke, according to his son . Even after his arrest, Aziz remained loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Convictions

The extent to which Aziz was involved in criminal acts by Saddam Hussein's regime was discussed in an Iraqi court case. On April 29, 2008, Tariq Aziz appeared for the first time before the Special Tribunal for the Crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime. He was charged with signing an order in 1992 as a member of the Revolutionary Council to execute 42 wholesalers accused of price gouging. With this ruling, the government wanted to divert attention from supply bottlenecks that had been caused by sanctions against Iraq. The tribunal sentenced Aziz in March 2009 to 15 years in prison for crimes against humanity and murder. On the other hand, he was acquitted of allegations of involvement in a 1999 massacre of Shiite demonstrators.

In August of the same year, Aziz was sentenced to another seven years' imprisonment for participating in the expulsion of the Kurds in the northeast of the country.

In a third trial, the Special Tribunal sentenced Aziz to death on October 26, 2010 . The Special Tribunal made Aziz responsible for the persecution of members of religious parties, especially the Islamic Dawa Party, in the 1980s. Aziz then went on a hunger strike and, according to his lawyer, fell into a coma a few days later . Both issues were denied shortly afterwards by a court spokesman.

Russia urged Iraq to waive the death penalty on humanitarian grounds. The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed to health problems and Aziz's advanced age. The Vatican announced that Aziz's life must be spared in order to support "reconciliation and the restoration of peace and justice in Iraq".

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani refused to sign the death sentence against Aziz. The politician announced this in an interview with the French news channel France 24 on November 17, 2010. The reason he gave was that he would not sign the death sentence against Aziz or any other because, as a Social Democrat, he was against the death penalty. He also sympathizes with Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian. Aziz is also an old man at over 70. Talabani had already refused to sign Saddam Hussein's death sentence. Nevertheless, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the execution of Saddam Hussein, which was carried out in 2006. The European Parliament also called on Iraq not to carry out the death sentence.

On November 29, 2010, Aziz was sentenced to an additional ten years in prison for his role in crimes committed by the Saddam Hussein regime against the Kurds. This judgment was independent of the October 26, 2010 death sentence, which remained in force.

On June 5, 2015, Tariq Aziz died of a heart attack in a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya , where he was transferred from prison .

Web links

Commons : Tariq Aziz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Karin Leukefeld: Death without mercy. In: Junge Welt from June 7, 2015 (accessed June 7, 2015).
  2. ↑ a b c Tarik Aziz in the Munzinger archive , accessed on November 30, 2010 ( beginning of article freely available)
  3. ↑ US Designates 55 Most Wanted Iraqi Officials Part of Ongoing Effort to Secure and Return Iraqi Assets to the Iraqi People in: US Department of the Treasury dated June 24, 2003, accessed December 1, 2010
  4. ↑ Regulation (EC) No. 1210/2003 (PDF) of the Council of 7 July 2003 on certain specific restrictions in economic and financial relations with Iraq and repealing Regulation (EC) No. 2465/1996, Official Journal No. L 169 of July 8, 2003 pp. 0006 - 0023
  5. ↑ Iraq: Saddam supporter Tarek Aziz has died. In: Die Presse from June 5, 2015 (accessed June 5, 2015).
  6. ↑ Vatican Radio : Iraq: Struggle for Religious Freedom ( Memento of March 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) of January 1, 2007
  7. ↑ Edmund E. Gareeb: Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Oxford 2004, p. 31.
  8. ↑ Efraim Karsh: The Iran-Iraq War 1980 - 1988 , Oxford, 2002 p. 13f
  9. ↑ Deutschlandfunk: 20 years ago: The Iraqi attack on Kuwait and the war in the Gulf of August 2, 2010, accessed on October 27, 2010
  10. ↑ Efraim Karsh, Inari Rautsi: Saddam Hussein - A political biography, New York, 1991, pp. 114, 119, 139, 145-148, 186f, 211, 232-237, 240-242, 26of, 265, 269
  11. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : Tarik Asis delivered: Now he faces the death penalty from July 14, 2010, accessed on July 15, 2010.
  12. ↑ Associated Press : Iraq: US hands over Tariq Aziz, other detainees, July 14, 2010, accessed August 20, 2010
  13. ^ NZZ : Tarik Aziz wants asylum in Italy or Croatia from January 19, 2006, accessed on July 15, 2010
  14. ↑ Berner Zeitung : "Chemie-Ali" sentenced to death for the fourth time on January 17, 2010, accessed on July 15, 2010
  15. ↑ FAZ : The civil face of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship of April 30, 2008
  16. ↑ Saddam's Foreign Minister Tarek Aziz acquitted in: NZZ of March 3, 2009, accessed on July 15, 2010
  17. ^ Tariq Aziz guilty of Iraq murders . In: BBC News , May 11, 2009. Retrieved October 26, 2010. 
  18. ^ NZZ: Saddam loyalists convicted of expelling the Kurds from August 3, 2009, accessed on July 15, 2010
  19. ^ FAZ: Death sentence against former deputy Saddam Hussein , October 26, 2010.
  20. ^ "Tariq Aziz in a coma" , Iran German Radio from October 31, 2010.
  21. ↑ "Iraqi court spokesman denies reports of hunger strike Tariq Aziz" , Iran German Radio from November 1, 2010.
  22. ↑ Vatican and Russia plead for mercy for death row inmates Asis in: Zeit Online from October 27, 2010
  23. ↑ Iraq's President refuses to sign Asis' death sentence ( memento of November 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) in: Financial Times Deutschland of November 17, 2010
  24. ↑ President Talabani says he will not sign Aziz execution order in: France 24 of November 17, 2010
  25. ↑ Iraq's president rejects the death sentence against Asis in: Spiegel Online from November 17, 2010
  26. ↑ EU Parliament demands mercy for Tarik Asis in: Tages-Anzeiger from November 25, 2010
  27. ↑ Saddam aide Aziz convicted in Kurdish case : in Reuters of November 29, 2010
  28. ↑ Asis also sentenced to ten years in prison in: RP Online of November 29, 2010
  29. ^ Tariq Aziz Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison Over Fourth Set of Iraq Charges in: Bloomberg of November 29, 2010
  30. ^ Tariq Aziz given additional 10-year jail term for persecution of Shia Kurds in: The Guardian of November 29, 2010
  31. ↑ Iraqi Court Sentences Tariq Aziz to 10 Years for Saddam-Era Crimes Against Shiite Kurds in: Fox News of November 29, 2010
  32. ↑ Saddam Hussein's Vice Tarik Asis is dead. In: Tages-Anzeiger / Newsnet of June 5, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Aziz, Tariq
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Yuhanna, Mikhail; Asis, Tarik; Aziz, Tareq; Aziz Tarek; Youhanna, Tariq Mikhail
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi politician, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1936 or July 1, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Mosul or Tel Keppe , Iraq
DATE OF DEATH 5th June 2015
Place of death Nasiriya , Iraq