"We probably won't," Giovanni Di Stefano said in an interview when asked if the defence team would appeal, adding that he had appealed instead to the UN Human Rights Commissioner and the Inter-American Human Rights Commission.

"The current death sentence has been imposed by a court that is without a government. The Iraqi penal code requires that a sentence of death is confirmed by the president... but also by a member of the government," he said.

Aziz, the long-time international face of Saddam Hussein's regime, was sentenced to death by Iraq's supreme criminal court on Tuesday after finding him guilty of "deliberate murder and crimes against humanity".

Aziz has 30 days to appeal and the sentence needs to be confirmed by Iraq's presidential council. Various international powers including the European Union have appealed to Iraq for the death sentence not to be carried out.

Aziz surrendered to US forces in April 2003, days after the fall of Baghdad.

"If I appeal the decision to the Iraqi court of cassation it means that there is a presumption in law that maybe I am accepting there is a government," said Di Stefano, who said he was planning to travel to Baghdad on Sunday.

Iraq has not yet formed a government following March 7 elections.

Di Stefano said the Washington-based Inter-American Human Rights Commission had the power to stop Aziz from being handed over from US custody for execution. "We will have to see whether they dare use that power," he added.

He also claimed that Aziz was far from the decision-making circles under Saddam Hussein's regime and has been targeted because he is an "uncomfortable" figure who knows too much about Saddam's deals with international powers.

Di Stefano is a highly controversial figure in legal circles who claimed a personal friendship with the late Serbian warlord Arkan, assassinated in 2000.

He has also said that he is a lawyer in Italy but does not appear in the justice ministry's official register of Italian lawyers.

earlier related report
Iraq governor suspended for alleged Baath party affiliation
Tikrit, Iraq (AFP) Oct 27, 2010 - The governor of Saddam Hussein's native province has been suspended for membership of the executed Iraqi dictator's now outlawed Baath party, a vetting body said on Wednesday.

An investigation concluded that Salaheddin province governor Khaled Hassan Mehdi had been an active member of the Baath, the head of the provincial office of the Justice and Accountability Commission (JAC), Radi al-Harbawi, said.

"JAC officials informed us by mail that the current governor of Salaheddin, Khaled Hassan Mehdi, had been an 'active member' of the Baath party and the council decided on Tuesday to suspend him for two months," Harbawi said.

"Mr Mehdi has one month to appeal, after which the JAC has one month to uphold or cancel the sanction," said Harbawi, who is also an elected provincial councillor for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law bloc.

JAC spokesman Khaled al-Shami said the committee had received a letter several months ago alleging that Mehdi was a former Baath party member who should by law be disqualified from holding public office.

"One month ago we confirmed that the suspicions were proven and that he should leave his post," Shami said.

Provincial politicians speaking on condition of anonymity suggested that the allegations against Mehdi were a settling of accounts by supporters of former governor Mutasher Hussein Ellewi, who was sacked for alleged corruption in 2009.

Shortly after the 2003 invasion, the US-led occupation authority barred all senior and middle-ranking Baathists from public life, depriving tens of thousands of government employees of their jobs.

Implementation of the law is now overseen by the JAC, which disqualified 456 candidates from Iraq's March 7 general election for alleged membership of the party.

Headed by leading politicians from Iraq's Shiite majority community, the JAC has been accused of pursuing a witchhunt against members of the Sunni Arab minority which dominated Saddam's regime.

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