AFP,  Rome, Nov 1, 2010  – Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini will fly to Baghdad to try to stop the execution of former Saddam aide Tareq Aziz, who was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court last week, his office said Monday.
A foreign ministry statement announced Frattini’s ’intention to go to Baghdad soon to encourage the search for a solution which can avoid the death sentence against Tareq Aziz and other Iraqi personalities.
Italy is one of the countries at the forefront of a worldwide campaign to abolish the death penalty.
’During recent diplomatic contacts at the highest level … the Iraqi side has acknowledged the particular sensitivities of Italy,’ the statement said.
Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister who was the international face of Saddam Hussein’s regime, was given the death penalty for a crackdown on Shiite religious parties in the 1980s.
The death sentence provoked a wave of appeals for clemency from around the world, including from rights groups, the European Union, Russia and the Vatican.
Aged 74 and in poor health, Aziz has been in prison since surrendering in April 2003, a month after the US-led invasion of Iraq.