Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s former deputy prime minister and foreign minister, has died in prison aged 79. Iraqi officials said Aziz, who was one of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s top deputies, died on Friday afternoon after suffering a heart attack on Thursday. Aljazeera has more:
Al Jazeera has learnt that Aziz’s son, Ziad, expressed outrage that Iraqi officials had not informed him of his father’s death, and he had instead found out through local media reports. Aziz was Iraq’s foreign minister between 1983 and 1991 and deputy prime minister between 1979 and 2003.
Born Mikhail Yuhanna in 1936, Aziz was the highest ranking Christian official under Hussein’s presidency, and a member of the former ruling Baath Party’s inner circle. He was sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal in 2010 for his role in human-rights abuses committed under the former government, which was overthrown in 2003 when Iraq was invaded by a US-led alliance.
Aziz surrendered to US forces shortly after the invasion, and had been a prisoner since.
