Tariq Aziz, voice of Saddam government, dies at 79

NASIRIYAH, Iraq - Iraq's jailed former foreign minister Tariq Aziz, who used his mastery of English to put a gloss on Saddam Hussein's murderous regime for two decades, died in hospital Friday aged 79.

As Saddam's principal spokesman, the bespectacled Aziz - the only Christian in the now-executed president's inner circle - was a recognisable figure internationally whose rise was attributed to unswerving loyalty to Saddam.

Aziz was found guilty of "deliberate murder and crimes against humanity" for a crackdown on religious parties in the 1980s, and was sentenced to death in October 2010.

He was also handed various prison sentences for other crimes.

"Tariq Aziz arrived at the Hussein Teaching Hospital at 3 pm," Dr. Saadi al-Majed, the head of the health department in Dhi Qar, the province where he was jailed, told AFP.

"He died because of a heart attack," the doctor said.

Aziz had long been in poor health, suffering from heart and respiratory problems, high blood pressure and diabetes, and his family repeatedly called for his release from custody.

In 2011, his lawyer said Aziz, in a state of depression, wanted then-premier Nuri al-Maliki to accelerate his execution due to his worsening health.

Aziz's son Ziad complained of his father's "poor treatment" while in prison, telling AFP from Amman that this definitely "led to the deterioration of his health and therefore his death".

Ziad said he did not know when the body would be handed over to the family in the Jordanian capital, or whether his father would be buried in Amman or Baghdad.

Named foreign minister in 1983 and then deputy premier in 1991, Aziz was believed to have wielded little real power over decision-making.

But he became one of the regime's best-known figures abroad as Saddam's voice who matched and at times outshone his US peers in debate.

Born in the northern town of Sinjar on 28 April 1936, Aziz was from a Chaldean Catholic family.

Thick glasses, cigar

He changed his name from Michael Yuhanna to Tariq Aziz to allay any hostility to his Christian background.

Aziz had known Saddam since the 1950s, but was kept outside the closed Sunni Muslim circle of the president's fellow clansmen from the city of Tikrit even as he rose to become the top Christian in the Baathist government.

Once omnipresent, haranguing the international media and instantly recognisable in his trademark thick glasses, neat uniform and large cigar, Aziz turned himself over to American custody a month after the March 2003 US-led invasion that overthrew Saddam.

Critics of the occupation charged that Aziz was held as a political prisoner to avenge his often-eloquent and erudite verbal assaults on Washington and London.

Very little was heard of Aziz during his time in custody.

He was reported to have suffered two heart attacks, with the second said to have been caused by a three-day hunger strike to protest his detention.

The image of an ailing old man is very different to his previous existence defending seemingly lost Saddam causes.

Instructed to explain Saddam's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait or Baghdad's repeated standoffs with UN weapons inspectors through the 1990s, the genial Aziz always found the words that made world headlines.

Defending Saddam

After British and US airstrikes on Baghdad in 1998, he laid into the international community, the Arab world and the "criminals" - referring to then-prime minister Tony Blair and former US president Bill Clinton.

In early 2003, Aziz embarked on a high-profile tour of European capitals in a failed 11th-hour bid to prevent the US-led invasion.

His strong command of English, learned at university, not only ensured that the anglophone media turned out to listen, but also gave him a platform to deliver fierce tongue-lashings guaranteed to make diplomats squirm.

Even after Saddam's execution, Aziz took the stand in 2007 during the trial of three other leading regime members to insist that his long-time master was not guilty of crimes against humanity and had only been punishing would-be assassins.

He was referring to Saddam's death sentence for ordering the deaths of 148 people following a 1982 assassination attempt against him.

Aziz himself survived an apparent assassination bid by grenade at Baghdad's Mustansiriyah University in 1980 that killed several people and was blamed on the Shiite Dawa party, now a leading force in Iraq.