Tariq Aziz In Jordan: Paper

The piece came as a bombshell in Jordan given that Aziz is believed to be in the U.S. custody in occupied Iraq, said the widely-circulated As-Sbiel weekly, which carried the news.

The weekly’s editor-in-chief, Atef al-Goulani, told IslamOnline.net that his paper was handling each piece of news with "credibility and objectivity."

"Some well-placed sources asserted to us that they saw Aziz with their own eyes in Jordan," he averred.

The weekly, the mouthpiece of Jordanian Islamists, enjoys high credibility in the Jordanian media community.

The U.S. Central Command announced in April that Aziz was in "our possession," giving no further details.

Aziz is number 43 on the American list of 55 most-wanted officials from Saddam Hussein’s regime and features as the eight of spades on the Pentagon’s deck of playing cards.

Additionally, one of Aziz’s next of kin revealed in May that Aziz’s immediate family had resorted to Amman.

Questioned

But Jordanian Information Minister Nabil al-Sherif case doubts on the authenticity of such press reports.

"Nothing official has been yet released by the Jordanian government in this respect and I myself have no information about the matter," he told IOL.

However, the minister’s statement came short of a denial which suggests that the report might be true.

"Jordan opened its borders to Iraqi brothers, including relatives and families of former Iraqi officials, such as the two daughters of (ousted president) Saddam Hussein and the wife of Tariq Aziz, who are not wanted by the Americans," he remarked.

IOL tried in vain to reach Mrs. Violette Aziz, who has been living in Jordan along with her two daughters for more than two months.

Last week, the Jordanian government rebuffed a request by Mrs. Aziz to inform her about her husband’s accounts in Jordanian banks.

The government argued that it was not in a legal position to do so, noting that the Jordanian judiciary was the one and only authority to take such a decision.

However, Sherif dismissed such media reports as "groundless," pointing out that Mrs. Aziz also denied them.

Preferred Refuge

Meanwhile, well-informed sources told IOL that Amman has become a preferred refuge for families of former Iraqi officials.

They are also seeking information regarding the bank accounts of former Iraqi officials, added the sources.

A former employee with the Iraqi embassy in Amman said that relatives of Saddam’s half brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraqi businessmen close to the ousted regime were seeking to get the accounts through their contacts with Jordanian ministers and officials.

The Jordanian government has frozen some half a billion dollars in deposits for the former Iraqi government in addition to millions for former Iraqi officials.

Iraq owes Jordan more than one and a half billion dollar, according to a Jordanian official count.

The Jordanian minister also denied that Saddam’s two daughters had managed to get the accounts of their husbands.

In a related development, sources with the Jordanian cabinet told IOL that the government had denied the family of former Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan residency and an entry visa.

They further said that the family of former Iraqi health minister Omid Medhat had arrived in Jordan two weeks ago.

They said that Medhat’s family was living in one of Amman’s posh areas.