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| Tariq Aziz guilty of Iraq murders | Tariq Aziz guilty of Iraq murders |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| Tariq Aziz, for many years the public face of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, has been jailed for 15 years for his role in the execution of 42 merchants. | |
| Aziz had denied any role in the summary trials of the men accused in 1992 of profiteering during economic sanctions. | Aziz had denied any role in the summary trials of the men accused in 1992 of profiteering during economic sanctions. |
| A number of top regime figures signed the death warrants of the flour traders, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, commonly known as Chemical Ali. | |
| At least two others received death sentences. Details are still coming in. | |
| This is Aziz's first conviction in the controversial Iraqi High Tribunal process, which has been criticised by human rights groups on a number of counts. | |
| He could also have received a death penalty. Last week he was acquitted in a separate trial over the killings of Shia Muslim protesters in 1999. | |
| Co-defendant al-Majid was facing his fourth capital conviction in the merchants' case, having been already been sentenced in the Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s, the crushing of a Shia uprising in 1991 and the 1999 killings. | |
| Another of the co-accused is Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan. | |
| Saddam Hussein himself was hanged in December 2006 in a separate case. | |
| Human Rights Watch issued a report into the trial of Saddam Hussein which concluded that the process was flawed and its verdict unsound because of "serious administrative, procedural and substantive legal defects". |