IRAQ’s former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz took the witness stand Wednesday to defend Saddam Hussein and his associates from charges that they massacred civilians in Dujail in the 1980s.
While he was not involved with the events of Dujail itself, his testimony focused on the series of assassination attempts against officials of the Ba’ath regime at that time, which Aziz blamed on the Shi’ite Dawa Party of the current prime minister.
He said: ‘The president is not guilty, nor are any of the officials in the government, just because they punished those who tried to assassinate the head of state.’
The assassination attempt against Saddam in Dujail took place in 1982.
He said: ‘The Dujail case is part of a chain of assassination operations against officials and I am one of the victims.’
He laid the responsibility for the attempt at the feet of the Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Dawa Party.
‘I am also a victim of the criminal acts of a party which is now an official party in the government,’ he added. ‘I want them tried for their criminal acts like the assassination attempt in the Mustansiriyah university.’
In 1980, Aziz was attacked by militants who tossed grenades at him at the university in Baghdad.
‘The president of the state in any country, if faced with an assassination attempt, should take procedures to punish those who conduct and help this operation,’ he said.
Aziz said he was testifying on the behalf of not just Saddam, but also the former head of intelligence Barzan al-Tikriti and the former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan.
Saddam then spoke out in defence of Barzan and Ramadan, saying they had nothing to do with the crackdown on Dujail.
‘I just let this issue work in the usual way and assigned the security department, not the intelligence who had other work to do,’ Saddam said.
‘I didn’t assign Ramadan to anything in this case.’
Saddam and his seven co-defendants face charges of crimes against humanity, including murder and torture, and could face execution by hanging if found guilty.
Aziz’s testimony was followed by that of Abdel Hamid Mahmud, Saddam’s director of personal security and constant companion, who described the attack on Saddam.
He explained how the conspirators used the traditional custom of sacrificing a sheep in Saddam’s honour to mark his car for the assassins with bloody hand prints.
