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Iraq Sunni VP Hashemi death squad trial to wrap up in September |
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Iraq Sunni VP Hashemi death squad trial to wrap up in
September
15.8.2012 |
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Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who is
charged with running a death squad. Photo: Getty
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August 15, 2012
BAGHDAD, Iraq,— An Iraqi court will next
month hear concluding remarks from prosecutors and
the defence team in the death squad trial of
fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a judge
said on Tuesday.
The trial, which began in May, has been over the
assassinations of two security officials and a
lawyer, the first of around 150 charges levelled
against Hashemi and his bodyguards.
A statement posted on the vice president's website
on August 10 said he was in Doha, Qatar. He is being
tried in absentia.
"We decided to postpone the trial until September 9,
after we heard the testimony of all the defendants,
and the next session will be for the prosecutor and
the defence team (to present their closing
remarks)," said the judge presiding over the case.
Hashemi, one of the country's most senior Sunni
officials, has dismissed all the charges against him
as politically motivated, and the accusations have
raised sectarian tensions when the accusations were
first made by Iraq's Shiite-led government.
He fled to Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region when
the charges were made in December, as US troops were
pulling out of the country.
The trial, which began May 15, has previously heard
testimony that silenced pistols were found in raids
on Hashemi's house and that of his son-in-law,www.ekurd.net
while bodyguards and other officials say they were
offered money, or were coerced, into carrying out
attacks on the vice president's orders.
After fleeing to Kurdistan, which refused to hand
him over, Hashemi embarked on a regional tour that
took him to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Copyright ©, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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