Death Penalty News

Tariq Aziz (left) and Saddam Hussein (center) Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)Tariq Aziz, the imprisoned former Saddam Hussein lieutenant who served as a public face of the Iraqi dictator's government until the regime was toppled in 2003, died Friday of a heart attack at a hospital, two officials in the Mideast nation said. He was 79. Aziz, who'd been sentenced to death four years ago in one of several post-Hussein trials against him, died at a hospital in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, said Hussein al-Askay, the head of a Nasiriya prison, and Saad al-Majid, the director of the province's health department. Aziz had been taken to the hospital after his medical condition deteriorated at the prison, the officials said. Aziz often defended the Hussein regime on the international stage, serving as deputy prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and as foreign minister for part of that time. A fluent English speaker, he was the face of the regime to the outside world. Wh...

January 23, 2013: Tareq Aziz, the late Saddam Hussein's ailing former deputy premier now on death row, is suffering from depression and plans to ask the Pope to call for his speedy execution, his lawyer said. Badie Aref said Aziz, a Christian, believed he was being treated well in prison, but was suffering from ill health and simply wanted an end to his "misery." "He is in total depression," Aref told AFP by telephone after meeting with Aziz earlier on Wednesday. The lawyer said Aziz had told him: "I will now write an appeal to the Pope. Even though I have never met him in person, I will call for him to end my misery, because I would prefer to be executed rather than stay in this condition." Aziz, a close confidante of now-executed dictator Saddam, was sentenced to death in October 2010 after having been found guilty of "deliberate murder and crimes against humanity." The Vatican, the European Union and several Western ...

The Iraqi authorities must halt the country's alarming rate of executions, Amnesty International said after a former aide to Saddam Hussain became the latest death penalty convict to be executed this year. Abed Hamid Mahmoud, also known as Abed Hamoud, was executed by hanging on Thursday , taking the total number of executions in Iraq in the 1st half of 2012 to at least 70. Abed Hamoud was presidential secretary and bodyguard to the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain. 2 other members of Saddam's former cabinet are among those facing imminent execution. "The killing of Abed Hamoud is part of an alarming escalation in executions in Iraq and we fear others may soon face the same fate," said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International. "The Iraqi authorities should refrain from using the death penalty, commute the sentences of all those on death row, believed to number several hundred, and dec...

Saddam Hussein's trusted personal secretary, once No. 4 on the U.S. most-wanted list in Iraq, was executed by hanging on Thursday, the Iraqi Justice Ministry said. Abed Hamid Hmoud was the latest in a series of former senior regime officials who have been executed by Iraq's new rulers since the toppling of Saddam during a U.S.-led invasion nine years ago. His body was to be handed over to his family later Thursday, officials said. Hmoud, a distant cousin of Saddam, was captured by U.S. forces in June 2003, three months after the invasion. At the time, he was No. 4 on the list of wanted regime officials, after only Saddam and sons Qusai and Odai. He was known as the ace of diamonds on the U.S. deck of cards that ranked leaders of Saddam's government. Hmoud, in his mid-50s, was executed for persecuting members of the Shiite opposition and religious parties that were banned under Saddam, a court official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was no...

Tariq Aziz Baghdad (CNN) -- Tariq Aziz, who served as Iraq's top diplomat under Saddam Hussein, will be executed next year, after U.S. forces have pulled out of the country, an adviser to Iraq's prime minister told CNN on Monday. "It will definitely take place, and it will take place after the Americans leave Iraq," said the adviser, Saad Yousif al-Muttalibi, about Aziz, who served as foreign minister. A lawyer for Aziz said he was surprised. "I did not expect the government would be that stupid, by doing this they will drag this country to the edge of the abyss," said Badi Arif in a telephone interview. "What about the national reconciliation that this government has been calling for? The government's position will be even weaker if they carry out the execution after the American troops leave the country and this will lead to more conflict among Iraqi factions." A new law is under consideration that would require death sentences be rati...

Tariq Aziz (left) and Saddam Hussein (center) One of the most prominent figures of Saddam Hussein's regime has been sentenced to die by hanging. Iraq's top criminal court issued the sentence Tuesday for former foreign minister Tariq Aziz (left) for his role in the persecution of Shi'ite political parties. Aziz had been charged with helping to kill, imprison or exile leaders of the Islamic Dawa party of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The death sentence is the first for Aziz, who is already serving a 15-year prison sentence for the execution of 42 merchants in 1992. He was sentenced to another seven years for the forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq. Aziz has said he is guilty of nothing more than being a loyalist. He says he, personally, committed no crime. Aziz surrendered to U.S. troops in 2003. Saddam Hussein, his former boss, was captured in Iraq in 2003 and executed by the interim Iraqi government in 2006. In an intervie...