Tariq Aziz wins 'unofficial support' from Vatican

[AVN]

Article

Tariq Aziz wins 'unofficial support' from Vatican
By Colin Freeman and Bruce Johnston in Rome
(Filed: 12/12/2004)

Saddam Hussein's former foreign minister and right-hand man has persuaded sympathisers in the Vatican to arrange free legal advice for his defence against war crimes.

Tariq Aziz, a practising Christian who acted as foreign spokesman for the Iraqi dictator, secured the services of Italian lawyers after contacting a group of Roman Catholic priests and bishops.

He wrote to his family from jail in Baghdad urging them to contact Father Jean-Marie Benjamin, a Left-wing priest who had previously brokered a controversial meeting between Aziz and the Pope before the war last year.

Fr Benjamin, who has said he is acting with the Vatican's unofficial blessing, is now orchestrating religious and legal support for Aziz, the former dictator's deputy prime minister, who has yet to learn the exact details of the charges against him.

The campaign also has the backing of Monsignor Emmanuel Delly, the Patriarch of Baghdad and spiritual leader of the country's 500,000-strong Chaldean branch of the Catholic Church to which Aziz belongs.

The church's involvement in Aziz's defence is potentially embarrassing for the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, whose centre-Right government supported the US-led invasion.

Supporters of Aziz say that he was only a diplomat but the British and Americans believe that his role as apologist for Saddam's regime makes him culpable.

Fr Benjamin, 58, a former executive of the UN agency Unicef, which campaigned against sanctions on Iraq, said: "Mr Aziz was a friend of mine and was a diplomat, not a military man. He asked his family to contact me last July for help for the co-ordination of the defence, and when I talked with my bishops and superiors they said yes, morally you have the right to do so. The solicitors will be working for free as the family lack the funds to pay for his defence."

The Vatican, which declined to comment on the matter, encourages priests to carry out unofficial initiatives as a way of tackling sensitive diplomatic issues.

On this occasion, after Fr Benjamin told the Papal offices of his plans, he received a warm letter from Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's secretary of state, thanking him for his work "building links with Iraqis and the wider Arab world". The letter made no direct reference to the Aziz case but Fr Benjamin said: "Privately, they support what we do."

Fr Benjamin has assembled a team of five Italian lawyers and fellow clergy, including a bishop, Diego Bona, the president of the Assisi-based Beato Angelico Foundation, which promotes Muslim-Christian relations.

It was as director of the foundation that Fr Benjamin invited Aziz to meet the Pope in February last year, prompting criticism that Rome was rolling out the red carpet for the Iraqi regime. Despite the Pope's opposition to the war on moral grounds, human rights groups insisted that the Vatican should not have granted an audience to a man whose hands were "stained with crimes against humanity".

Last month Fr Benjamin and his team travelled to the Jordanian capital of Amman to meet Aziz's son, Ziad.

"Fr Benjamin knows my father well and has asked lawyers from Italy to defend him without charge," said Ziad Aziz. "He has also said he will get support from the Vatican."

Tariq Aziz, whose urbane manner distinguished him from Saddam's thuggish henchmen, has been virtually incommunicado since he gave himself up to US forces last year. The only glimpse his family have had of him was when he and 11 other ex-regime figures were arraigned with Saddam at a preliminary court hearing in Baghdad in July.

As he stood in the dock he asked to be appointed a foreign lawyer and denied any personal culpability, telling the court: "I never killed anybody by any direct act." Since then there have been reports that he has agreed to give evidence against Saddam, although his son has dismissed the suggestion as unlikely. "The charges against Saddam have no need for anybody to give evidence," said Ziad Tariq.

"But we don't really know what is happening at the moment because we haven't even had a letter from him since July. That is American justice for you."

Any thoughts ?

 

[cgannon64]

We don't need Rome telling us what to do.

 

[amadeus]

One group of criminals supporting the other.

 

[samildanach]

"I never killed anybody by any direct act."

Unless this has been mis-translated or taken from part of a wider statement it suggests that Aziz was more than an apologist for the Iraqi regime. One might infer that he had actually signed off on a few orders to kill people. But as he says he was not actualy the one to pull the trigger. Odd thing to say...really. Might get him in some bother.

 

[cgannon64]

One group of criminals supporting the other.

Eek! Sharpe, are you bashing the Vatican? You flaming liberal.

 

[amadeus]

Providing defense to a mass-murderer is not doing God's work.

 

[BloodyPepperoni]

That's great. If it takes that to show people that the former regime in Iraq was not a christian hating islamic theocracy, then so be it. I'm Catholic (not practising, but still) and I fully support the Vatican's position. In today's Iraq, christians are being discriminated against and murdered on an almost daily basis. They were way better off with the former president, who did everything to prevent muslim fanatics from gaining influence and promoted religious freedom.

Under Saddam, alcohol merchants plied their wares freely in their shops.The lack of enforcement of the Sharia made Iraq the party spot of the
region. David Younan Oro, a 70-year-old patriarch of a Christian family in
Ramadi, ran casinos and nightclubs during the heyday of Saddam's regime. He
described the glory days like this, "They drink like donkeys here. Business
was good. I had a lot of restaurants and shops." If you stayed out of
politics, life and business were good

source

 

[amadeus]

And if you were the father of an 11 year old school girl, she'd be raped by Qusay and had the videotape sent to you.

Life was good.

 

[BloodyPepperoni]

And if you were the father of an 11 year old school girl, she'd be raped by Qusay and had the videotape sent to you.

Life was good.

I wanted to hear different opinions and that article gave my another point of view of life under the previous regime. Of course, sharpe, from me to you, I don't condone rapings of young girls. Qusay was the older of the two, the mentally-ill one, right? He was jailed by his father once if I'm not mistaken. He did not commit that in the name of the Iraqi government.

 

[JohnRM]

One group of criminals supporting the other.

Yes, this kind of treachery from the Holy See is nothing new.

 

[BasketCase]

Whadaya expect in a world where a cheese sandwich sells on E-bay for $28,000?

 

[Zarn]

I see the 'boys' are terribly blind in this case, and I'm not refering to the Vatican.

The Catholic Church must accept anyone who goes to them for this sort of help. The Catholic Church does not promote suffering of any kind. It's considered not very Christian to turn your back on anyone (despite deeds) from the Catholic point of view. This isn't the dark ages.

 

[BasketCase]

Membership in CFC: free.
Civ3 Gold Edition: $29.95.
GeForce 6800 with which to play Civ3: $299 to $399.
An Arab going to the Catholic Church for help: PRICELESS.


Edit--An Arab Christian: lucky Hezbollah didn't find out about him.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Tariq Aziz is Christian so of course the Vatican is going to back him regardless of what he did for the Baathists.

 

[amadeus]

Membership in CFC: free...

Not these stupid MasterCard parodies again. They're unfunny and if you were in standup, you'd be identified (and rightly so!) as a hack.

 

[BasketCase]

I'm not a professional comedian, so yes--I AM A HACK.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Qusay was the older of the two, the mentally-ill one, right? He was jailed by his father once if I'm not mistaken. He did not commit that in the name of the Iraqi government.

Qusay was the younger one, and, from what I heard, much the stabler one.

 

[samildanach]

Qusay was the younger one, and, from what I heard, much the stabler one.

I did here after the war ended that there were videos floating around. The biggest selling video in Iraq was entitled IIRC "Qusay and his Whores". It's the first I've heard of him raping young girls. But I can believe it because it appears he was in the habit of having himself filmed.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I wasn't saying that Qusay was nice. Only that Uday seemed alot crazier.

 

[samildanach]

I wasn't saying that Qusay was nice. Only that Uday seemed alot crazier.

Not that it matters now. They are both dead which is as nice as either of them were ever going to get .