[JURIST] Former Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz [BBC news profile; JURIST news archive] has suffered a severe stroke while in detention, his son Ziad Aziz said Sunday. Aziz, who also suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, was taken to an American hospital for treatment and is now said to be in stable condition, though he is paralyzed and unable to speak. His health has been poor since his arrest by American forces in 2003, and his family, who are Catholic, have lobbied the pope for his release [AP report]. Aziz still faces charges from the current Iraq government, which has refused to delay proceedings against him [NYT report] to wait for his recovery.

Aziz was convicted [JURIST report] in August of displacing Kurds during the 1980s. The sentence extended Aziz's prison term to a total of 22 years following a March conviction [JURIST report] for his involvement in the 1992 murders of 42 merchants accused of price-gouging during UN-imposed sanctions. Prior to his March conviction, Aziz was acquitted of charges [JURIST report] in connection with the 1999 killing of protesters who rioted in Baghdad and Amarah following the alleged assassination of Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr.

[JURIST] A Spanish lawmaker Saturday expressed anger over the use of his image as a basis for an FBI mock-up [Rewardsforjustice.net reward poster] of Osama bin Laden [JURIST news archive], saying he would like a formal explanation and may file a lawsuit. The FBI admitted to using an image [CNN report] of Spanish MP Gaspar Llamazares [official profile, in Spanish], the former leader of the United Left Coalition [party website in Spanish], as the basis for an age-progressed picture of Bin Laden for its Rewards for Justice [official website] program. The FBI explained [AP report] that a forensic analyst working on the updated picture resorted to using Llamazares' image after he could not find suitable features in the file photographs of the al Qaeda [JURIST news archives] leader. The FBI said there was no ill motive. Llamazares said [Canadian Press report] he was disappointed at the intelligence agency's actions and that he now feared traveling to the United States.

Osama bin Laden is currently believed [Times report] to be hiding out in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The most recent contact with Bin Laden is believed to be a audio tape [transcript; JURIST report] from 2006. In the recording, a man claiming to be bin Laden said that convicted September 11 [JURIST news archive] conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui [JURIST news archive] was not intended to be one of September 11 hijackers as he had not finished his flying training, and that "his confession that he was assigned to participate in those raids is a false confession which no intelligent person doubts is a result of the pressure put upon him for the past four and a half years." The man on the tape also indicated those held in Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] did not play any role in the September 11 attacks either. Bin Laden's whereabouts were last confirmed in 2001 when he avoided airstrikes while hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan.

[JURIST] The Supreme Iraq Criminal Tribunal [governing statute, PDF] sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] to death by hanging on Sunday, finding him guilty of having ordered the Kurdish village of Halabja gassed in 1988. The gassing of Halabja [BBC report], which killed 5,000 Kurds, was part of the wider Anfal campaign [JURIST news archive] against Kurds in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein regime, and is considered one of the worst attacks on the ethnic minority. Though al-Majid, who is better known by his sobriquet "Chemical Ali," has the right to appeal, Iraq deputy justice minister Busho Ibrahim said that his hanging was expected within days [The Guardian report]. Al-Majid, who has already been sentenced to death three other times, has still more alleged crimes to his name, but those will not go to trial.

In March 2009, al-Majid received his third death sentence for his role in a 1999 killing of protesters [JURIST report] who rioted in Baghdad and Amarah following the alleged assassination of Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr. In December 2008, the Tribunal sentenced al-Majid to death [JURIST report] for his involvement in the repression of Shiites in southern Iraq during the Saddam regime. Al-Majid has also been sentenced to death for the another killing of Kurdish Iraqis using chemical weapons during the 1988 Anfal campaign. His death sentence in the first Anfal case was upheld on appeal in September 2007, but Iraq's Presidency Council did not approve the execution [JURIST reports] until late February. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government said in early March that al-Majid would not be executed [JURIST report] until the Presidency Council approved the death sentences of al-Majid's two co-defendants in that case.