Saddam aide Aziz blames Iran for gas attack

BAGHDAD, Mar 5 (Reuters) Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz today told a court trying six former aides of Saddam Hussein for genocide that Iran, not Iraq, was to blame for a 1988 gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds.

Aziz, whose lawyers say is in poor health as he waits in a US military jail in Baghdad for his own trial, testified as a defence witness in the Anfal case.

Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, known as ''Chemical Ali'', and five other former senior Baath party officials are on trial for their roles in a 1988 military campaign prosecutors say killed up to 180,000 people, many of them gassed.

Looking tired and pausing several times to drink water, Aziz -- once the public face of Saddam's regime -- blamed Iran for a gas attack in the Iraqi Kurdish village of Halabja in 1988, in which 5,000 people were killed. Iraq and Iran fought a bitter war the 1980s.

''The chemical weapons used at that time causing the death of thousands of people were made with cyanide gas and not mustard gas. Iran had this gas at this time, not Iraq,'' said Aziz, wearing his familiar thick glasses, but looking thinner and older in his first appearance in court for almost a year.

Halabja is not part of the Anfal case, but prosecutors hope to open soon a separate trial on Halabja.

Aziz, who was once known for his love of fine suits, good whisky and Cuban cigars, also testified as a defence witness in the Dujail case, for which Saddam was hanged in December.

His lawyers have said he is suffering from diabetes and other illnesses. Aziz has not been charged with any crime but prosecutors at the Iraqi High Tribunal have said he will likely face charges for his role in crushing a Shi'ite uprising after the 1991 Gulf War.

REUTERS SP BST2236