Fugitive Iraqi vice president sentenced to death

The Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi is in absentia to death was convicted. Judge in the capital, Baghdad, were al-Hashimi was responsible for the death of a lawyer and a general. The private secretary and son of Sunni politician, Kahtan Ahmed, was also sentenced to death. The ongoing process since May exacerbated the domestic power struggle between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq shortly after the withdrawal of U.S. troops . Al-Hashimi is a suspicion of "leadership and funding of terrorist attacks" sought by an international arrest warrant. He was the end of 2011 fled to the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq after the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had caused his prosecution . According to a statement on its website on 10 August holds al-Hashimi on in Qatar. Al-Maliki accused the Vice President to have bodyguards financial support, who were involved in attacks. The politician and his lawyers had always denied the charges. The procedure was in her eyes controlled by the Prime Minister, who would in this way admit a political opponent out of the way.Al-Maliki governs Iraq at the head of a Shiite-Kurdish coalition. Observers accuse him of an increasingly authoritarian style of government. The volatile al-Hashimi, who comes from the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), is next to the Shia al-Chudair Chusai Deputy Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd. The relationship between the Shiite majority (60 percent) and the Sunni minority (about 20 percent) is still very tense. Sunni extremists commit repeated acts of terrorism in the country.