Fugitive Iraqi VP bodyguards handed death verdicts

Fugitive Iraqi VP bodyguards handed death verdicts

Iraq's fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi speaks to the media as he leaves a meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara, Turkey, September 9, 2012.

Thu Nov 29, 2012 12:43PM GMT

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The Central Criminal Court of Iraq on Thursday issued verdicts of penalties by hanging against four bodyguards of Hashemi for their involvement in the killing of an Iraqi civil defense major and his wife along with wounding their son in al- Jamia district (in western Baghdad) in 2011."
Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar al-Biraqdar

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An Iraqi court has sentenced to death four bodyguards of fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on terrorism charges.

"The Central Criminal Court of Iraq on Thursday issued verdicts of penalties by hanging against four bodyguards of Hashemi for their involvement in the killing of an Iraqi civil defense major and his wife along with wounding their son in al-Jamia district (in western Baghdad) in 2011," Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar al-Biraqdar told reporters in Baghdad.

Iraqi judicial authorities had earlier announced that a number of Hashemi’s bodyguards are accused of carrying out 150 armed attacks, including car bombs, roadside bombs and attacks against security officers.

Hashemi himself has been handed four death verdicts in absentia over involvement in terrorist activities and running death squads.

The fugitive vice president is convicted of involvement in bomb attacks against government and security officials over the past years, including a November 2011 car bombing in the capital Baghdad that apparently targeted the Iraqi prime minister.

On December 19, 2011, an investigative committee within the Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi after three of his bodyguards confessed to taking orders from him to carry out the terrorist attacks.

Hashemi fled to Iraq’s Kurdistan region last December as US troops were pulling out of Iraq. Baghdad persistently demanded that the autonomous Kurdish region hand him over to face justice, but the region declined to oblige.