BAGHDAD (AFP) - Saddam Hussein's former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz is alive, the US military in Iraq said, denying a swirl of television reports that he had died in custody.
"I can confirm that Tareq Aziz is alive, there is no change in his status and he is in our custody," said a spokesman for the US-led prisons authority in Iraq, Barry Johnson.
Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television said that 68-year-old Aziz had died in custody, quoting sources in the International Committee of the Red Cross in Iraq, while reports of his demise also surfaced in Moscow and Tehran.
It did not immediately give more details, but Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television quoted sources at the Vatican as confirming the death of Aziz, who was the only Christian member of Saddam's cabinet.
One of 55 former Iraqi officials posted on a most-wanted list by US-led forces following their invasion, Aziz, 68, surrendered in April last year and has been in US custody ever since.
In Amman, ICRC spokeswoman Nada Dumani said: "We cannot confirm the death of Tareq Aziz. We have no information on the matter."
She said Red Cross officials had visited Aziz last week, and that he had not been in hospital at the time.
In Rome, the Ansa news agency said that one of Aziz's sons Ziad had contacted a French monk to say that his father was still alive.
Aziz, the loyal aide who was long considered Saddam's voice to the world, was appointed foreign minister in 1983 and became deputy prime minister in 1991.