The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

The trial begins in Iraq on Tuesday of Tareq Aziz, former deputy premier and the international face of the Saddam Hussein regime, on charges related to the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants in 1992.

It is the fourth trial of former regime officials by the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), the court set up to try high-ranking officials under Saddam. Judge Muneer Haddad from the IHT confirmed to AFP that the trial will begin on Tuesday.

Tareq Aziz and seven others, including "Chemical" Ali Hasan al-Majid, are accused of executing the Baghdad businessmen after blaming them for hiking food prices when Iraq was under UN sanctions.

Prosecutors say the victims were arrested in Baghdad's wholesale markets and executed after a speedy trial in 1992. They also allege that the former regime then seized their money and property.

According to his son, Tareq Aziz is innocent of the charges against him. Ziad Aziz also described the charges against his father as "weak" and aimed at "preventing him from taking advantage of the amnesty law which states that anyone held for a year without being referred to court must be released."

"My father has been in prison for five yearst without being charged, tried or investigated," he said.

Aziz and Majid, who is already on death row after being convicted of genocide for overseeing the killings of Kurdish villagers in 1988, are the two most high profile defendants in the new trial.