Iraq's Talabani says will not sign Aziz death order

A video grab shows former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz listening to the court verdict while in the dock in Baghdad March 11, 2009.

PARIS (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday he will not sign an execution order for Tareq Aziz, the former deputy of dictator Saddam Hussein sentenced to death last month for crimes against humanity.

"No, I will not sign the execution order for Tareq Aziz, because I am a socialist," Talabani told French television France 24 in an interview.

"I sympathize with Tareq Aziz because he is an Iraqi Christian. Moreover he is an old man who is over 70," he said.

Iraq's high tribunal passed a death sentence on Aziz, once the international face of Saddam's government, in October over the persecution of Islamic parties in Iraq during Saddam's rule.

The Vatican and Russia both called on Iraq not to carry out the death sentence on humanitarian grounds, noting his age and health problems. The Vatican said mercy would help the war-torn country make progress toward reconciliation, peace and justice.

Aziz, a Christian, was well known in foreign capitals and at the United Nations before Saddam's downfall.

The U.S. government did not join the appeals to spare Aziz's life. Analysts said that was partly because the United States itself carries out the death penalty and also possibly because it did not consider his hands to be entirely clean.

It was not clear whether Talabani's opposition to signing the death sentence would prevent it from being carried out.

Iraq executed Saddam in 2006 despite Talabani's apparent refusal then to sign, and the president's powers since his re-election last week are not the same as they were during his last term.

A leading Iraqi lawyer said he believed Aziz's death sentence could not legally be carried out without Talabani's signature on the execution order.

"According to the Iraqi constitution, the president of the state has the power to ratify death sentences before they are carried out," said the lawyer, Tariq Harb.

IN THE CONSTITUTION

"Death sentences cannot be implemented without the approval of the president. This is what is in the constitution."

Many high-ranking officials in Saddam's government have been sentenced to death since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and several have been executed.

Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime killed tens of thousands in brutal campaigns against minority Kurds and the Shi'ite majority.

Last year, an Iraqi court sentenced Aziz to 15 years in prison for his part in the killings of dozens of merchants in 1992 and to a further seven years for his role in the forced displacement of Kurds from northern Iraq during Saddam's rule.

He surrendered to invading U.S. forces in April 2003 but was handed over to Iraqi prison authorities this year.

Talabani, a Kurd, did not oppose the death sentence being carried out against other Saddam aides, such as Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as "Chemical Ali" for overseeing poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages in which thousands died.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Editing by Samia Nakhoul)