ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 10 (UPI) — A death sentence issued to fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi is “obviously” a politically motivated action, a Turkish diplomat said.<\/p>\n
An Iraqi court sentenced the vice president to death in absentia Sunday on charges he was operating a death squad in the country. Hashemi took refuge in Kurdish-run northern Iraq before leaving the country for Turkey following the filing of formal charges in December. He’s the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.<\/p>\n
A Turkish diplomatic source told daily newspaper Hurriyet the sentencing was politically motivated.<\/p>\n
“This is obviously a political decision,” the source said on condition of anonymity. “Sentencing the country’s vice president to death is an absurd situation.”<\/p>\n
Hashemi requested U.N. intervention in his case, saying those who offered evidence against him did so during interrogation techniques that he said amounted to torture.<\/p>\n
The Turkish government said it wouldn’t extradite the vice president to Iraq. Diplomatic relations between the two countries have soured since U.S. forces left Iraq last year. A spokesman for the Iraqi government had said ties with Ankara were under examination following a series of diplomatic meetings between Turkish officials and those from the Kurdish north.<\/p>\n
Hashemi told the Turkish newspaper last month he was expecting the death sentence. The judicial system in Iraq, he said, has lost its legitimacy under Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.<\/p>\n
Topics: Tariq al-Hashimi, Nouri al-Maliki<\/p>\n
via Turkey stands by Iraqi vice president – UPI.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ANKARA, Turkey, Sept. 10 (UPI) — A death sentence issued to fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi is “obviously” a politically motivated action, a Turkish diplomat said. An Iraqi court sentenced the vice president to death in absentia Sunday on charges he was operating a death squad in the country. Hashemi took refuge in Kurdish-run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[7673,8371],"class_list":["post-56903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iraq","tag-nouri-al-maliki","tag-tariq-al-hashimi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}