Iraqi leader ‘operated death squads’

An Iraqi judicial panel said last night that the country’s Sunni vice president and his employees ran death squads that killed security officials and Shiite pilgrims. The findings offer the first independent assessment of accusations that have thrown the nation into political chaos and threaten to re-ignite sectarian tensions.

After a two-month investigation, the nine-judge committee found at least 150 cases where either Tariq al-Hashemi, his bodyguards or other employees were linked to attacks ranging from roadside bombs to assassinations of security agents and Shiite pilgrims, Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar said.

He said the death squads operated from 2005 to 2011, and were responsible for a bombing last December on the government’s Integrity Commission headquarters that killed 25 people and the assassination of a deputy education minister in 2010.

A spokesman for Mr al-Hashemi declined to comment. But Mr al-Hashemi, Iraq’s highest ranking Sunni politician, has denied the allegations in the past, and has accused Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki of co-ordinating a smear campaign against him as part of a power grab.