BAGHDAD – Iraq's Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court Sunday after he was convicted of murder in a ruling likely to further exacerbate sectarian tension. Hashemi, a Sunni, fled the country earlier this year after authorities accused him of running a death squad. His case triggered a crisis in the power-sharing government among Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political blocs.
“The high criminal court issued a death sentence by hanging against Tareq Al-Hashemi after he was convicted,” Abdul-Sattar Al-Birqdar, a spokesman for the Judiciary Council said. Hashemi, tried in absentia, has dismissed all charges against him as politically motivated. A Baghdad court also tried in absentia his secretary and son-in-law Ahmed Qahtan and sentenced him to death. Under Iraqi law, a conviction is followed immediately by sentencing. The death sentence can be appealed. The trial for the murder of a lawyer and a brigadier general, which began in May, covered the first of around 150 charges levelled against Hashemi, who has been accused of running a death squad, and his bodyguards. Sunday hearing opened with the prosecution asking the court to condemn Hashemi to death for the two murders but to drop a charge of involvement in another top security official's killing. The defense lawyers then read a lengthy closing statement protesting that the trial was unfair and the court exposed to political pressure.
A judge at one point interrupted, warning the defense lawyer: “You are attacking the judicial authority and you will be held responsible if you continue.” The sentence was issued after about 30 minutes of deliberation by the three judges. Hashemi, who was born in 1942, became one of Iraq's vice presidents in April 2006, the same month that his brother and sister were shot dead in separate attacks. When he first became a vice president, he was the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a group that was said to have connections to some elements of Iraq's Sunni insurgency. The party was the driving force in Iraq's Sunni-led National Concord Front, which helped mastermind the return of the country's Sunni minority to the political process. – Agencies
