TAREQ AZIZ: IRAQI BISHOPS AGAINST DEATH PENALTY

Iraqi bishops against the death penalty inflicted by the Iraqi Court on Tareq Aziz, deputy prime minister at the time of the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein. “We condemn death penalty in any circumstance", stated the Chaldean patriarchal vicar of Baghdad, mgr. Shlemon Warduni, as he commented the news for Baghdadhope. “We Christians respect the right to life. Our faith makes us believe that no one can be deprived of the life that God gave. What we ask for is peace, security and people meeting each other, not fighting. We want the best for every human being". This opinion is shared by the Latin archbishop of the Iraqi capital, mgr. Jean B. Sleiman, who, during a meeting on Christianity in Iraq which took place in Turin, “assumed” that such sentence might be a sort of "message", a sort of a “halt” to the parties that are lobbying in Iraq for bringing the members of the defunct Baath party back into the social and political life of the country. Tareq Aziz, whose real name is Michael Yohanna, was born in Tel Keif in 1936 of a Chaldean Catholic family and early in life he became a militant in the Baath party where he eventually took the highest positions. Just after the overthrowing of the regime in 2003, he surrendered to the US troops that took custody of him until last July, when he was taken over by the Iraqi authorities.

© SIR - 27 ottobre 2010