He was the Eight of Spades on the Pentagon's playing cards list of the 55 most-wanted men of Saddam's regime. Tariq Aziz, the public face of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial clique, goes on trial today in Baghdad, accused for his participation, yet to be proven however, in the execution of 42 merchants in 1992.

Aziz was Iraq's foreign minister until his surrender to U.S. troops in April 2003, as Baghdad was falling to the invading forces.

His job was to try and justify Saddam's follies, such as the eight-year war with Iran, a success for Aziz who managed to win Western support, including that of the United States; or the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which proved to be Saddam's undoing; and try as he did, Aziz was unable to prevent the 1991 Gulf War.

Aziz stood out from the rest of Saddam's inner circle as being one of the very few not to hail from the former president's hometown of Tikrit and the only Christian to reach that level of power in Saddam's regime.

This trial however is more than for the killing of 42 merchants; Saddam Hussein's government killed tens of thousands of innocent people. Much like the trial of Aziz's former boss, in fact it's the trial of the entire regime that is on display. The trial of Aziz and the others who played a role – passive or active – in supporting the brutal killings, the countless assassinations and torture of prisoners by the former regime should serve as a warning to others who believe they can get away with murder, quite literally.

Unjustified as the invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces has proven to be (remember the reasons given: Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction, and then his links to al-Qaida, both proven not true), nevertheless the appearance of these once all-powerful rulers of Iraq now forced to answer to a judge like common criminals must send shivers down the spines of quite a few who consider themselves as untouchable today as Aziz and the other 54 on the pack of cards once did.