QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA AND SAMEER N. YACOUB , Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Tariq Aziz, the debonair Iraqi diplomat who made his name by staunchly defending Saddam Hussein to the world during three wars and was later sentenced to death as part of the regime that killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, has died in a hospital in southern Iraq, officials said. He was 79.

Aziz died Friday afternoon after he was taken to the al-Hussein hospital in the city of Nasiriyah, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) southeast of Baghdad, according to the provincial governor, Yahya al-Nassiri. Aziz had been in custody in a prison in the south, awaiting execution.

Aziz, the highest-ranking Christian in Saddam's regime, was its international face for years. He was sentenced in 2010 to hang for persecuting members of the Shiite Muslim religious parties that now dominate Iraq.

His wife, Violet, had visited him in prison Thursday, their daughter Zeinab told The Associated Press in the Jordanian capital, Amman, where most of the family lives.

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