PROSECUTORS seeking to convict Saddam Hussein for war crimes believe they have made a significant breakthrough after Tariq Aziz, the former dictator's right-hand man, agreed to give evidence against him.
| For which he gets a new identity, some plastic surgery and a double-wide in a trailer park in Algeria. |
Aziz, now the star witness, is understood to have agreed to "co-operate fully" with American interrogators in return for leniency. Until he made the deal Aziz, the former deputy prime minister and the only senior Christian member of the regime, was facing the death penalty.
| Loosened his tongue with the threat of the needle, did they? |
Aziz is now expected to testify that Saddam was personally responsible for war crimes, including the slaughter of thousands of innocent Kurds and Shi'ites. In 1988 5,000 people died in a single day in the Kurdish town of Halabja after a gas attack which Saddam claims to have been an accident. Before Aziz agreed to co-operate, prosecutors were struggling to find evidence such as signed orders or minutes of meetings that would prove the despot instigated such atrocities. Two other senior members of the regime — Sultan Hashim Ahmad, a former defence minister, and Kamal Mustafa Abdullah, secretary of the Republican Guard — have also agreed to testify. Prosecutors are now confident of mounting a successful case against the dictator. The US authorities are said to be delighted that Aziz seems to have turned against the former regime.
| Three witnesses? That ought to do it. |
|