U.S. hands over Tariq Aziz, other detainees to custody of Iraqi government

[sabra]

Source: WP

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has transferred 29 officials from Saddam Hussein's regime, including his international representative Tariq Aziz, to the Iraqi government over the past week, the country's deputy justice minister and U.S. authorities said Wednesday.

Twenty-six others were handed over about 10 months ago.

The announcement by Busho Ibrahim comes a day before the U.S. turns over the last American-run detention center to Iraqi control. U.S. military authorities will retain 200 people, including eight members of the former regime.

The fate of some is still unclear, including that of the former defense minister, Sultan Hashim al-Taie, who turned himself in to the U.S. military in 2003. He was sentenced to death in 2007 but the execution was never carried out because Iraq's president was opposed. Hashim remains in U.S. custody.

Aziz, the most high-profile of the men transferred in recent days, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 in connection with the execution of 42 merchants found guilty of profiteering in 1992. The 73-year-old Aziz had a stroke earlier this year and is in poor health.

Aziz, who served as foreign minister and deputy prime minister, was widely known as the public face of Hussein's government before turning himself in to U.S. authorities a month after it fell in April 2003.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/14/AR2010071401604.html

[msongs]

1. George HW Bush's former best friend, Tariq, is still in jail? nt

[AlphaCentauri]

2. Aziz was one of those who kept religion out of Iraq's government

will se what happens after Iraq becomes independent

[regnaD kciN]

4. He'll be swinging from the end of a rope by then...

[louis-t]

3. Hmmm, profiteering in Iraq = death sentence.

Profiteering in US = nobody cares.