Saddam deputy Tariq Aziz, sentenced to death for crimes against humanity, dies in hospital

Tariq Aziz, the international voice of Saddam Hussein’s regime, has died in an Iraqi hospital aged 79 after several years of poor health, a provincial official has said.

Tariq Aziz: 'Britain and the US killed Iraq. I wish I was martyred'

“Tariq Aziz died in Hussein teaching hospital in the city of Nassiriya, where he was brought when his health condition worsened,” Adel Abdulhussein al-Dakhili, the deputy governor of Dhi Qar province, where the former foreign minister was jailed, told Agence France-Presse.

Dakhili did not specify the cause of death, but Aziz’s health had long been failing, as he suffered from heart and respiratory problems, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Aziz was found guilty of “deliberate murder and crimes against humanity” over a crackdown on religious parties in the 1980s and was sentenced to death in October 2010. He was also handed various prison sentences for other crimes.

He remained defiant. In 2010, in what would prove to be his last English-language interview, he told the Guardian: “It’s been seven years and four months that I have been in prison. But did I commit a crime against any civilian, military or religious man? The answer is no.”

As Hussein’s principal spokesman, Aziz – the only Christian in the now-executed dictator’s inner circle – was an internationally recognisable figure whose rise was attributed to unswerving loyalty to the despot.

Once omnipresent, haranguing the international media and instantly noticeable in his trademark thick glasses and neat uniform, Aziz turned himself over to American custody a month after the US-led invasion of March 2003.

Irn Bru wrote:Took them a while to get round to him. Which card in the deck of cards that Bush came up with was he?