AMMAN (AFP) - A group of French and Italian lawyers will not be able to defend Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz, whose trial resumes on Tuesday, because they still have no visas from Iraqi authorities, the accused's son, Ziad Aziz, told AFP in Amman.

And his Iraqi defence lawyer said on Saturday he too will not attend the trial because he has "no protection from the Iraqis".

"No one from the Iraqi government has spoken to me about this and I will not risk my life without receiving guarantees," Badie Izzat Aref said.

Aziz, 71, surrendered to US troops in Iraq in April 2003 a month after the invasion. He went on trial on April 29 on charges linked to the execution of 42 Baghdad merchants for hiking food prices when Iraq was under UN sanctions.

Prosecutors say the businessmen were arrested in Baghdad's wholesale markets and executed after a speedy trial in 1992.

Aziz could face the death penalty if convicted.

His trial before the Iraqi High Tribunal was adjourned to May 20 after Aziz demanded a new lawyer, saying that his counsel "Badie Aref was unable to attend for security reasons."

His son, Ziad Aziz, said that French lawyer Jacques Verges, four Italian lawyers and a Lebanese-French attorney, have all applied for visas but have not received them yet and will be unable to travel to Baghdad.

"All the lawyers who have declared their readiness to defend my father have not received yet visas to enter Iraq to attend the trial on Tuesday," Ziad Aziz said in Amman.

"Verges told me that if he cannot obtain a visa to enter Iraq, he will come to Amman on Monday and hold a press conference," to vent his frustration, he added.

Verges has defended some of the world's most notorious figures including Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan terrorist "Carlos the Jackal."

Earlier this month Aref said he had asked that the trial be moved to Iraqi Kurdistan in the relatively quiet north of the country for the sake of increased security, while other defence attorneys wanted a transfer abroad.

Ziad Aziz said he had telephoned his father on Thursday and that they spoke for 11 minutes.

"He told me he would defend himself if none of his lawyers can attend the trial," he said

"His health was okay. But he told me that he did not receive the summer clothes and the cigarettes that I had sent to him via the Red Cross at the start of the month," he added.

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