Top Aide Aziz Accuses Shiites at Hussein Trial

BAGHDAD — Former Foreign Minister Tarik Aziz, a member of Saddam Hussein’s inner circle, took the stand at the deposed dictator’s trial Wednesday and said that he himself had been the target decades ago of an assassination attempt by the Shiite party of Iraq’s new prime minister.

The accusations appear to be part of a defense strategy to damage the legitimacy of the legal proceedings while justifying the crackdown on Shiite residents of Dujayl after an assassination attempt against Hussein in 1982, the human rights case at the center of the trial. Hussein and his co-defendants face the death penalty if convicted.

“The judiciary should try those who tried to kill others and me,” said Aziz, 70. “I’m a victim of a criminal act done by this party which is in power now. Try them. Try the party,” he said, referring to the Islamic Dawa Party.

Aziz said assailants threw hand grenades at him when he visited a university in Baghdad on April 1, 1980, killing several civilians. It was one in a series of attacks against Baath Party officials by Dawa members, he said.

The appearance by Aziz, who has been in U.S. custody since 2003, was his first before the court. His lawyers have said Aziz has heart problems and has asked to be released for medical treatment. He is not a defendant in the case against Hussein.

For years, Aziz was the face of Hussein’s regime to the outside world. Throughout the afternoon Wednesday, Al Arabiya television juxtaposed images of the pale-looking Aziz on the witness stand, wearing what appeared to be a pajama top, with footage of a younger Aziz, in crisp suits and shaking hands with such dignitaries as Pope John Paul II, Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In the courtroom, the judge often appeared frustrated with Aziz, whose testimony had little to do with the Dujayl case. Aziz said he was only trying to provide historical context. He said he had never heard the defendants mention retaliation against the citizens of Dujayl.

“He never told me he had captured and tortured people of Dujayl,” he said, referring to Hussein’s half brother Sabawi Ibrahim Hassan, the dictator’s feared intelligence chief.

“The president is not guilty,” he said, adding that neither was Hassan nor “any of the officials in the government.” They only “wanted to punish those who tried to assassinate the president.”

The comments echoed those of Hassan, who Monday testified that the Dawa party had conspired to kill Hussein when he was in power.

Hussein’s bodyguard and private secretary, Abid Hamid Mahmud, took the stand after Aziz, testifying about that day in Dujayl. As people celebrated Hussein’s visit, one woman dipped her hand in the blood of a slaughtered sheep and marked the president’s car, he said. The convoy later came under attack, with gunmen focusing on the marked car, the guard said.

But Hussein had switched cars and was unharmed by the hail of bullets. Despite the attempt on his life, Hussein decided to go back into town. At a clinic, he climbed onto the roof and gave a speech “to calm the people,” Mahmud said.

Near the site of the attack, Hussein’s security forces found a warehouse containing heavy weapons and powerful radio equipment, the bodyguard said, leading them to connect the assassination attempt to Iran.

He and other witnesses insisted that razing orchards in the area was part of a five-year plan to improve the area, not to punish local people.

Luay Khairallah Tulfah, Hussein’s brother-in-law, appeared as the last witness of the day, questioning why executing 148 people after the assassination attempt was a crime.

“The Dawa party made many attempts on his life,” he said. “When Bush bombs Baghdad and kills too many people, they call it justice.”

The trial, in its eighth month, has at times appeared to spin out of control with shouting, verbal abuse and walkouts.

Chief Judge Raouf Rasheed Abdel Rahman, who took the reins in January after the previous judge walked out, has tightened control of the courtroom, and he regularly reprimands defendants and lawyers for outbursts and lengthy diatribes.

The judge began the session Wednesday by warning defense lawyers and defendants that he would tolerate no more insults in the courtroom. Earlier in the week, the judge tossed out a defense attorney after she repeatedly disrupted the proceedings.

The trial adjourned until Monday.

Times staff writer Saif Rasheed contributed to this report.