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Former Saddam Aide Tariq Aziz Testifies
 Tariq Aziz, Iraq's foreign minister under Saddam Hussein, was questioned Tuesday about his alleged role in mass killings prior to the regime's ouster, his lawyer said. The four-hour questioning session by a special war crimes tribunal focused on the 1987-88 Anfal campaign, a depopulation scheme in which hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed or expelled from northern Iraq on Saddam's orders, said Badee Izzat Aref, Aziz's lawyer.Aziz has been jailed since he surrendered in April 2003. "He denied all the charges and he was very calm and told them that there was no evidence for these accusations," Aref told The Associated Press. The lawyer's comments broke a gag order he had signed earlier with the Iraqi Special Tribunal, but he called the order an "illegal request" and said he planned to challenge it. Aziz, 69, referred to Saddam as "president" and " Posted by: Fred 2005-06-22 |
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