AP Features, July 21st, 2007
Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein, was admitted to a U.S. military hospital after fainting at prison, his lawyer said Saturday.
Badee Izzat said Aziz was flown Tuesday to the hospital at the large U.S. military base in Balad 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad after he repeatedly fainted in the U.S.-run detention facility near Baghdad airport where he is being held.
The U.S. military said it was looking into the report.
Aziz had served as Saddam's foreign minister for many years before becoming deputy prime minister, and he was the public face of Iraq under the former dictator to the outside world. He surrendered to U.S. forces in Baghdad shortly after the Saddam regime was toppled in 2003.
Aziz was taken to the hospital in Balad a day before he was due to appear before an investigative judge for questioning on the murder of Muslim clerics following the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, according to Izzat. Aziz denies the charges and Izzat said Saturday that his client was visiting Yemen when the alleged killings had supposedly taken place.
Izzat said he believed Aziz had been returned to prison Saturday but that could not be independently confirmed.
"Iraqi authorities told the Americans to speed up his medical treatment because they want to question him," Izzat told The Associated Press by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "It would appear that he is back in prison today but I am not 100 percent sure."
Izzat, who is a Christian like Aziz, has long campaigned for the release of his client on the grounds of poor health or allowing him to travel abroad for treatment. He maintains that Aziz continues to suffer from the effects of a stroke he had prior to the U.S. invasion in 2003.
