Interpol aids Iraq in bid to collar vice president
BAGHDAD — The international police organization Interpol stepped into a bitter political and sectarian fight Tuesday when it responded to a request for help from Iraq to arrest the country’s fugitive Sunni vice president on charges he ran death squads inside Iraq.
The move is expected to increase tension between Iraq’s Shiite leadership and leaders in Turkey, where the Iraqi vice president, Tariq al-hashemi, has been staying with the apparent blessing of the Turkish government since he fled his refuge in northern Iraq last month.
Iraqi authorities want alHashemi returned to Baghdad, where judges will prosecute him on terrorism charges in what could be one of Iraq’s most politically intense court proceedings since Saddam Hussein’s trial six years ago.
Iraqi authorities unveiled an array of accusations and an arrest warrant against alHashemi last year, just a day after the last U.S. soldiers withdrew from Iraq, touching off a destabilizing political crisis between Prime Minister Nouri al-maliki and his political opponents from Iraq’s Sunni minority group.
Those tensions have eased somewhat, but al-hashemi’s case is still an open wound in Iraq’s political circles.
His trial in absentia, due to start last week, was delayed after al-hashemi’s lawyers asked that his case be transferred to a higher court.
As he traveled from Qatar to Saudi Arabia to Turkey in recent weeks, al-hashemi has said he wants to fly back to Iraq to prove his innocence but that he has no confidence he could get a fair trial in Iraq’s politically pliable justice system.
Tuesday’s note by Interpol, known as a “red notice,” is not an international arrest warrant and stops well short of requiring Turkey, an Interpol member, to take al-hashemi into custody. But it is expected to increase pressure on Turkey to take action against al-hashemi. At the least, it has the potential to keep him in Turkey by making it more difficult for him to cross international borders.
“It is a powerful tool that will help authorities around the world locate and arrest him,” Interpol’s secretary-general, Ronald Noble, said in a statement.
A spokesman for al-hashemi said in Istanbul on Tuesday that Interpol’s note came as a surprise, according to the Anatolian News Agency, and that al-hashemi’s legal advisers would evaluate the situation before making a statement. His office has said he will return to Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdistan region, where he had been staying since fleeing Baghdad in late December.
Turkey will continue to provide any necessary assistance to al-hashemi during his legal ordeal, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said while on a visit to Rome on Tuesday.
“Mr. Hashemi has been to Turkey both regarding his health issues and also for meetings in light of the recent developments,” Erdogan said in a joint news conference with his Italian counterpart, Mario Monti.
“I believe he would be back to his country, after he completed the process regarding his health, and continue his efforts regarding his legal issues,” he said. “We have provided, are providing and will provide any support in our capacity on that matter.”
Al-hashemi’s case and its resulting political shock waves have become sources of public discord between Iraq and Turkey, undermining an important economic relationship.
Last winter, Iraqi officials accused Turkey of meddling in Iraq’s internal affairs after Erdogan expressed concern about the destabilizing political climate in Iraq.
Last month, news reports quoted Erdogan as saying alMaliki’s “self-centered” ways had strained relations among Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian groups.
Al-maliki, according to Reuters, responded by saying Turkey was becoming a “hostile state.”