BAGHDAD, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Tariq Aziz, one of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's top lieutenants, was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in the ethnic forced displacement of Kurds in northern Iraq during Saddam's rule, a source from the Iraqi criminal court said Monday.

    Tariq Aziz, former deputy prime minister under Saddam, and three other co-defendants received on Sunday seven-year sentences, they are Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," former Interior Minister Sadoun Shakir and former regional official Mizban Khuder Hadi, said the source from the Iraqi High Criminal Court.

    "Because you committed the crime of forced displacement against the Kurds, the court has decided to sentence you to seven years in prison," the source quoted Judge Mahmoud Salih as saying to Aziz.

    Three other former regime aides received six years in prison, while four were found not guilty, the source added.

    Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam's Muslim regime, was known as a fierce American critic after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent 1990-1991 Gulf War.

    The new conviction for Aziz came more than four months after he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in a separate case due to crimes against humanity in the 1992 execution of Iraqi merchants.

    In March, the Iraqi High Criminal Court acquitted Aziz in a separate case over crackdown on Shiite protestors that followed the 1999 assassination of Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, father of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

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