Ace Rimmer
01-19-2006, 02:03 PM
FORMER IRAQI FOREIGN MINISTER ASKS CROATIA TO CONSIDER GRANTING HIM ASYLUM
ZAGREB, Jan 18 (Hina) - An Italian lawyer for former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz has asked Croatia to consider granting his client asylum if he is released from US detention, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration confirmed on Wednesday.
"The ministry has received a letter from the Italian law firm Studio Legale Internazionale, which did not send a formal request but asked Croatia to consider whether it would be inclined to grant a formal request for asylum if the Iraqi government accepted a proposal to release (Aziz) for compassionate reasons," ministry spokeswoman Ivana Crnic said.
She said that the ministry considered it unrealistic that Aziz would file a formal request for asylum in Croatia, adding that Aziz's lawyer had sent similar letters to many other countries.
The Zagreb weekly Globus said in its latest issue that the family of the former Iraqi foreign minister and one of the closest aides to the deposed dictator Saddam Hussein preferred Croatia to other European countries.
Aziz has been in US detention since April 2003 and his lawyer has requested that he should be pardoned and released for health reasons.
The letter to the Croatian ministry says that Aziz is not feeling safe in Iraq and that he cannot receive adequate medical care there as he could in Croatia.
Lawyer Giovanni di Stefano says that Aziz surrendered to the Americans voluntarily and that "serious and grave charges" against him were dropped. "Instead he is charged with alleged financial wrongdoing, and even if a prison sentence had been imposed for that it would have been shorter than the one he has served so far," the letter says.
The ministry did not say if and how it would respond to the request.
(Hina) (http://www.hina.hr/nws-bin/genews.cgi?TOP=hot&NID=ehot/politika/H1180472.4yc)
ZAGREB, Jan 18 (Hina) - An Italian lawyer for former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz has asked Croatia to consider granting his client asylum if he is released from US detention, the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration confirmed on Wednesday.
"The ministry has received a letter from the Italian law firm Studio Legale Internazionale, which did not send a formal request but asked Croatia to consider whether it would be inclined to grant a formal request for asylum if the Iraqi government accepted a proposal to release (Aziz) for compassionate reasons," ministry spokeswoman Ivana Crnic said.
She said that the ministry considered it unrealistic that Aziz would file a formal request for asylum in Croatia, adding that Aziz's lawyer had sent similar letters to many other countries.
The Zagreb weekly Globus said in its latest issue that the family of the former Iraqi foreign minister and one of the closest aides to the deposed dictator Saddam Hussein preferred Croatia to other European countries.
Aziz has been in US detention since April 2003 and his lawyer has requested that he should be pardoned and released for health reasons.
The letter to the Croatian ministry says that Aziz is not feeling safe in Iraq and that he cannot receive adequate medical care there as he could in Croatia.
Lawyer Giovanni di Stefano says that Aziz surrendered to the Americans voluntarily and that "serious and grave charges" against him were dropped. "Instead he is charged with alleged financial wrongdoing, and even if a prison sentence had been imposed for that it would have been shorter than the one he has served so far," the letter says.
The ministry did not say if and how it would respond to the request.
(Hina) (http://www.hina.hr/nws-bin/genews.cgi?TOP=hot&NID=ehot/politika/H1180472.4yc)