Tariq Aziz is slumped on a tattered brown sofa seat cradling his walking stick and cigarettes, his gaunt face topped, incongruously for a practising Christian, by a Muslim prayer cap. It is perhaps only the familiar black-ringed spectacles that signal to the visitor that this was Iraq’s former face to the world – Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man, his most powerful deputy.
Apart from his captors and lawyers, Aziz, says he has not seen or spoken to a foreigner since the fall of Baghdad. But after years rotating between solitary confinement and a witness box in court, he is now more than ready to speak.
“It’s been seven years and four months that I have been in prison,” he told the Guardian. “But did I commit a crime against any civilian, military or religious man? The answer is no.”
Full Story: Tariq Aziz: ‘Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was martyred’ | World news | The Guardian
FLASHBACK: RATHER INTERVIEWS AZIZ