Former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz and 25 other jailed members of Saddam Hussein's former regime were transferred from the US military to Iraqi authorities, a government spokesman said on Wednesday. Ali al-Dabbagh said Aziz was among 26 convicts moved from Camp Cropper, a US-army run detention centre, to Khadimiyah jail in the capital, ahead of a ceremony on Thursday in which control of Cropper will be handed to Iraq.
In addition, "Saddam Hussein's former secretary Abed Hmoud, the former Interior Minister Mohammed Zumam and former Oil Minister Amir Mohammed Rashid," were transferred to the Iraqi-run faciility, said spokesman Dabbagh Aziz's Amman-based lawyer Badie Aref told AFP the former deputy premier's life was at risk following the move on Tuesday night. "Aziz called me and said he was being held in the Khadimiyah prison in Baghdad," Aref said, calling for intervention from international organisations.
"He should have been released. What the Americans did violates the Red Cross code because they handed him over to his enemies. His life is in danger now." Aref added that Aziz told him US President Barack Obama "is no different to (former US president George) Bush, and that he will take part in killing us, indirectly." Aziz, 73, turned himself in to US forces in April 2003 and is one of Saddam's few surviving cohorts. The late dictator's chief henchman Ali Hassan al-Majid - better known as "Chemical Ali" - was hanged in January for a poison gas attack against Kurds in 1988.