Agence France Presse - Moscow, March 14 2006: Tareq Aziz, the flamboyant former Iraqi foreign minister under Saddam Hussein now held prisoner by the United States in Baghdad, has asked to go to Moscow for treatment of heart problems, the Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported Tuesday.
Aziz's lawyer, Giovanni Di Stefano, was quoted by the paper saying he had sent a request to the Russian foreign ministry for permission for Aziz to come to Russia for treatment.
"Tareq Aziz is not in good health," Di Stefano was quoted as saying. "He is suffering from an embolism... and complains of severe pain in his heart."
The lawyer, who is Italian, sent the request for help to the Russian ambassador in Rome, asking that he pass it up to President Vladimir Putin for consideration, Rossiiskaya Gazeta said.
"The message says that Aziz is in need of urgent medical attention that he cannot receive in Iraq due to the unstable situation in the country," the report said.
It quoted Di Stefano as saying: "We have asked the Russian government to provide the necessary guarantees to the Iraq tribunal like those that were given for Slobodan Milosevic for his trip to Moscow that never took place."
He was referring to formal promises made by the Russian government, in response to requests from Milosevic to travel to Moscow for medical attention, to return the late Serb leader to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, where he was on trial for crimes against humanity and other offenses.
The tribunal refused Milosevic permission to travel to Russia. The late Serbian leader, who had complained that he was being poisoned, was found dead in his cell on Saturday.
The immediate cause of death was ruled a heart attack but the causes of that are still under investigation.
Di Stefano said he had also sent a letter to the Bakulev Heart Surgery Center in Moscow asking if it was prepared to treat Aziz if he were granted permission to travel to Russia.
"Now we are waiting for an answer... we hope we don't see another death," he said, referring to Milosevic.
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