Iraq’s fugitive VP convicted as attacks kill 92

LARA JAKES

Asso­ci­ated Press

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s fugi­tive Sunni vice pres­i­dent was sen­tenced Sun­day to death by hang­ing on charges he mas­ter­minded death squads against rivals in a ter­ror trial that has fueled sec­tar­ian ten­sions in the coun­try. Under­scor­ing the insta­bil­ity, insur­gents unleashed an onslaught of bomb­ings and shoot­ings across Iraq, killing at least 92 peo­ple in one of the dead­liest days this year.

It’s unlikely that the attacks in 13 cities were all timed to coin­cide with the after­noon ver­dict that capped a month­s­long case against Vice Pres­i­dent Tariq al-Hashemi, a long­time foe of Shi­ite Prime Min­is­ter Nouri al-Maliki. Still, taken together, the vio­lence and ver­dict could ener­gize Sunni insur­gents bent on return­ing Iraq to the brink of civil war by tar­get­ing Shi­ites and under­min­ing the government.

Al-Hashemi fled to Turkey in the months after the Shiite-led gov­ern­ment accused him of play­ing a role in 150 bomb­ings, assas­si­na­tions and other attacks from 2005 to 2011 — years in which the coun­try was mired in retal­ia­tory sec­tar­ian vio­lence that fol­lowed the 2003 U.S.-led inva­sion that ousted Sad­dam Hussein’s Sunni regime. Most of the attacks were allegedly car­ried out by al-Hashemi’s body­guards and other employ­ees, and largely tar­geted gov­ern­ment offi­cials, secu­rity forces and Shi­ite pilgrims.

The vice pres­i­dent declined to imme­di­ately com­ment on the ver­dict after meet­ing with the Turk­ish For­eign Min­is­ter Ahmet Davu­to­glu in Ankara. He said he would “tackle this issue in a state­ment” in com­ing hours.

The polit­i­cally charged case — which was announced the day after U.S. troops with­drew from the coun­try last Decem­ber — sparked a gov­ern­ment cri­sis and fueled Sunni Mus­lim and Kur­dish resent­ment against al-Maliki, whom crit­ics say is monop­o­liz­ing power.

Vio­lence has ebbed sig­nif­i­cantly, but insur­gents con­tinue to stage high-profile bomb­ings and shoot­ing ram­pages. Al-Qaida’s Iraq branch has promised a come­back in pre­dom­i­nantly Sunni areas from which it was routed by the U.S. and its local allies after sec­tar­ian fight­ing peaked in 2007.

“These attacks show al-Qaida’s abil­ity to hit any place in Iraq and at any time,” said Ali Salem, 40, an ele­men­tary school teacher in Bagh­dad. “The lack of secu­rity could take us back to zero.”

The worst vio­lence on Sun­day struck the cap­i­tal, where bombs pounded a half-dozen neigh­bor­hoods — both Sunni and Shi­ite — though­out the day. But the dead­liest attacks in Bagh­dad hit Shi­ite areas Sun­day evening, hours after the al-Hashemi ver­dict was announced. In all, 42 peo­ple were killed in the cap­i­tal and 120 wounded, accord­ing to police and hos­pi­tal offi­cials who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because they were not autho­rized to release the information.

The coun­try­wide attacks began before dawn, with gun­men killing sol­diers at an army post in the cen­tral Iraqi city of Dujail. A few hours later, a car exploded in a lot where police recruits wait­ing in line to apply for jobs out­side Kirkuk in the country’s north. Both Dujail and Kirkuk are for­mer insur­gent strongholds.

Over the day, at least 92 peo­ple were killed and more than 360 wounded in at least 21 sep­a­rate bomb­ings and shoot­ings, accord­ing to reports from police and hos­pi­tal offi­cials. No group imme­di­ately claimed respon­si­bil­ity, but Iraq’s Inte­rior Min­istry blamed al-Qaida in Iraq.

“The attacks today on the mar­kets and mosques are aimed at pro­vok­ing sec­tar­ian and polit­i­cal ten­sions,” the min­istry said in a state­ment. “Our war against ter­ror­ism is con­tin­u­ing, and we are ready.”

The court­room at Baghdad’s crim­i­nal court was silent Sun­day as the pre­sid­ing judge read out the ver­dict. It con­victed al-Hashemi and his son-in-law, Ahmed Qah­tan, of orga­niz­ing the mur­ders of a Shi­ite secu­rity offi­cial and a lawyer who had refused to help the vice president’s allies in ter­ror cases. The two defen­dants were acquit­ted in a third case of the killing of a secu­rity offi­cer due to a lack of evidence.

The court sen­tenced both men in absen­tia to death by hang­ing. They have 30 days to appeal the ver­dict and could win a retrial if they return to Iraq to face the charges. Al-Hashemi — who has been in office since 2006 — is on Interpol’s most-wanted list, but Turkey has shown no inter­est in send­ing the vice pres­i­dent back to Baghdad.

The defense team began its clos­ing state­ment with a sear­ing indict­ment of Iraq’s jus­tice sys­tem, accus­ing it of show­ing no inde­pen­dence and sid­ing with the Shiite-led government.

“From the begin­ning and through all pro­ce­dures it has become obvi­ous that the Iraqi judi­cial sys­tem has been under polit­i­cal pres­sure,” attor­ney Muayad Obeid al-Ezzi, the head of the defense team, told the court.

The pre­sid­ing judge imme­di­ately inter­jected, warn­ing that that the court would open legal pro­ceed­ings against the defense team if it con­tin­ued to heap accu­sa­tions on the court or the legal system.

Reac­tion to the ver­dict was largely along sec­tar­ian lines on the streets of Baghdad.

Sunni lawyer Abdul­lah al-Azami called the trial “another farce to be added to the Iraqi judi­cial system.”

Shi­ite phar­ma­cist Khalid Saied, mean­while, said he sup­ported the ver­dict and hoped the gov­ern­ment would broad­cast all the evi­dence against al-Hashemi “so that the entire world knows him.”

Sunday’s vio­lence came amid fears that the insur­gency has gained new strength after suf­fer­ing heavy set­backs in U.S. and Iraqi offen­sives. Four of the attacks tar­geted Kirkuk, where city police com­man­der Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir blamed the vio­lence on al-Qaida.

The car­nage stretched into the country’s south, where bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in the Shiite-dominated city of Nasiriyah, 320 kilo­me­ters (200 miles) south­east of Bagh­dad. The blasts were near the French con­sulate and a local hotel in the city, although the con­sulate did not appear to be a tar­get of the attack.

Local deputy health direc­tor Dr. Adnan al-Musharifawi said two peo­ple were killed and three were wounded at the hotel, and one Iraqi police­man was wounded at the con­sulate. Al-Musharifawi said no French diplo­mats were among the casu­al­ties. In Paris, France’s For­eign Min­istry said it “con­demns with the great­est sever­ity” the wave of attacks.

A string of smaller attacks Sun­day also struck nine other cities. It was one of the worst out­breaks of vio­lence in Iraq in 2012, although the sin­gle dead­liest day was July 23, which saw at least 115 peo­ple killed — the most in more than two years.

Posted by AP News on Sep 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.