Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

Execution of Saddam Hussein    

    BAGHDAD, April 29 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and seven co-defendants are to stand on trial on Tuesday for their role in the execution of dozens of Iraqi merchants in 1992.

    Eight of Saddam's officials, including Aziz, are accused of involvement in the ordering of 42 merchants for increasing food prices at a time when Saddam's government were struggling to face the consequences of the international sanctions imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council earlier in 1990.

    The trial was suppose to begin at 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) in Baghdad heavily fortified Green Zone, but it was delayed to 5 p.m. (1400 GMT), according to a senior official of the Iraqi High Tribunal which is in charge of prosecuting Saddam's top official.

    "The defendants have to be brought from another place, they are not at the courtroom," Chief Judge Rauf Rasheed Abdul-Rahman told reporters gathered outside the courthouse in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.

    Rahman, an Iraqi Kurd, who sentenced Saddam Hussein earlier in 2006 to execution is the one who will preside at the trial of Tariq Aziz and seven co-accused.