Vice president target of Iraq authorities

Iraq has formally asked authorities in the country’s semi- autonomous northern Kurdish region to hand over vice president Tareq al-Hashemi and 12 of his entourage to face charges of running death squads.

Iraq’s Shia-led government issued an arrest warrant for the Sunni politician in mid- December, shortly after the withdrawal of the last US troops, triggering a political crisis that threatens prime minister Nuri al-Maliki’s fragile governing coalition of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish factions.

“We sent an official request a day ago to the Interior Ministryof the Kurdistan region asking them to hand over al-Hashemi with twelve other suspects to judicial authorities in Baghdad,” Lieutenant-General Hussein Kamal, Iraq’s deputy interior minister, said yesterday.

Hashemi, who has denied the charges, travelled to the Kurdish region after the central government sought his arrest.

He has said he cannot get a fair trial in Baghdad.

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