Iraq sentences Ba’athist PM to death

Iraq’s supreme criminal court has handed down a death sentence to the country’s Saddam-era deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, state television says.

“The supreme criminal court issued an execution order against Tareq Aziz for his role in eliminating religious parties,” AFP quoted the television as saying on Tuesday.

Mikhail Yuhanna, more popularly known as Tareq Aziz, served as Iraq’s foreign minister between 1983 and 1991, and as the country’s deputy prime minister from 1979 to 2003.

He was also a close advisor of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.