Tariq Aziz

Tariq Aziz (Arabic: طارق عزيز‎ Ṭāriq ʿAzīz, né: Mikhail Yuhanna (Syriac: ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܝܘܚܢܢ Mīḵāil Yōḥānon, Arabic: ميخائيل يوحنا‎ Mīḫāʾīl Yūḥannā baptized Manuel Christo; born 28 April 1936) was the Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003) of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is an ethnic Assyrian but an Arab Nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Because of security concerns, Hussein rarely left Iraq, so Aziz would often represent Iraq at high-level diplomatic summits. What the United States wanted, he averred, was not "regime change" in Iraq but rather "region change". He summed up the Bush Administration's reasons for war against Iraq tersely: "oil and Israel."

Since surrendering to American forces on 24 April 2003, Aziz has been held in prison, first by American forces and subsequently by the Iraqi government. He is currently in prison in Camp Cropper in western Baghdad. He was acquitted of some charges on 1 March 2009 following a trial, but was sentenced to 15 years on 11 March 2009 for the executions of 42 merchants found guilty of profiteering in 1992 and another 7 years for relocating Kurds. On 26 October 2010, he was sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal, and this has sparked regional and international condemnation from Iraqi bishops and other Iraqis, the Vatican, the United Nations, the European Union and the human rights organization Amnesty International, as well as various governments around the world, such as that of the Russia. On 28 October 2010, it was reported that Tariq Aziz, as well as 25 fellow prison inmates, had begun a hunger strike to protest the fact that they could not receive their once-monthly visit from friends and relatives, which was normally set for the last Friday of each month.

On 17 November 2010, it was reported that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani had declared that he would not sign Aziz's execution order.