Aziz without defence team

TAREQ AZIZ, the international face of the brutal regime of hanged Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, was back in the dock yesterday on charges of crimes against humanity — but without any lawyers to defend him.

Aziz, 72, is on trial along with seven other defendants over the execution in 1992 of 42 Baghdad merchants accused of racketeering while Iraq was under UN sanctions. The former foreign minister and deputy prime minister said he was “proud” to have been a member of the now disbanded Baath party but that he could not be held responsible for the charges against him.

Prosecutor Adnan Ali outlined the charges against Aziz and the other defendants, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali, who has already been sentenced to death for genocide in another case.

He said merchants had their ears cut off and hands amputated for allegedly dealing in foreign currency between 1992 and 1995, at a time when Iraq was under crippling UN economic sanctions.

Ali called for a “suitable punishment that will ease the hearts of widows and the oppressed”.

All eight defendants were in court but Aziz remains without the lawyers he had asked for when the case first came to trial in April.