Iraqi president denies deal to release Aziz

Kuna: The Iraqi presidential office on Tuesday denied recent media reports suggesting an agreement was worked out between President Jalal Talabani, Iraqi leaders and US forces, to release Tareq Aziz, who was a close aide to the ousted leader Saddam Hussein, and other ex-Baathists.

The "news reports are baseless and fabricated for bad purposes, this issue has never been raised thus never agreed upon," the office said in a statement.

It noted that the reports indicated at an agreement between Talabani, former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the American forces to release Aziz and former executives in the Baath Party.

Aziz, a former foreign minister, was arrested in April 2003. He is reported to be suffering from diabetes.

He had also suffered from brain and heart problems before the war of liberation of Iraq over two years ago. Link

db: Could this be true? If not, who benefits from such rumors? And if so does this indicate a change in [NKVD] policy towards Iraq's 1.7 million or so Baaths? Last time I checked, the constitution was pretty much a hopeless case - an attempt to bring on board the isolated and unnecessarily criminalised would make sense.