(AhlulBayt News Agency) - “British servicemen and women did not die or risk their lives in Iraq in order to install a regime that indulges in judicial murder,” said former shadow foreign secretary Gerald Kaufman.
In an Early Day Motion to parliament raised on Wednesday, Kaufman said that MPs regarded with “deep revulsion” the decision of the Iraqi government to carry out a death by hanging sentence on Aziz.
The British government opposed the use of the death sentence but had yet to officially respond to the execution order issued by the Iraqi Supreme Court “for his role in eliminating religious parties.”
Two British bishops, who met Aziz in 1999, and the most senior UK officer responsible for post-war planning in Iraq following the 2003 invasion, also appealed against the decision.
“We do not question the guilt of Mr Aziz in respect of the crimes for which he has been convicted. We hold no brief for his activities under Saddam Hussein,” said Bishop of Bath Peter Price, Bishop of Coventry Colin Bennets and retired Major General Tim Cross.
“He is currently a very ill man and will in probability die from his illness. Our appeal is on a humanitarian basis. Nothing will be served by his execution,” they said in a joint letter to the Guardian Thursday.
“He has largely been forgotten during his imprisonment since giving himself up to the coalition forces. His own view that he would die in prison would in our view be a sufficient punishment,” their letter said.
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