BAGHDAD — From self-exile in Turkey, Iraq’s fugitive vice president scoffed Monday at a Baghdad court that sentenced him to the gallows for masterminding death squads against rivals, describing it as a puppet of the prime minister and saying he will not return to appeal the verdict.
The conviction of Tariq al-Hashemi, one of the nation’s highest-ranking Sunni officials, rids Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of a top political foe while threatening to deepen the rift between Iraq’s main Muslim sects as the nation struggles to achieve stability nine months after U.S. troops withdrew.
Hours after the verdict was announced Sunday, insurgents launched fierce bombings against mostly Shiite neighborhoods in the capital, killing 92 and wounding more than 360 in one of Iraq’s deadliest days this year.
“The verdict is unjust, politicized, illegitimate, and I will not recognize it. It means nothing to me,” al-Hashemi, who took office in 2006, told reporters in Ankara.
