Iraq Detains 16 Vice Presidential Guards
Security forces have detained 16 of Tareq al-Hashemi's bodyguards, Iraq's interior ministry said, in a move the fugitive vice president said Tuesday was nothing new in a series of false accusations.
Hashemi is hiding in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq after being accused in mid-December of running a death squad.
The Kurdistan authorities have so far declined to hand him over to the central government for trial.
"Interior ministry security forces detained 16 members of Vice President of the Republic Tareq al-Hashemi's guard, who were practicing assassinations with silenced rifles and pistols targeting interior ministry officers and judges," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Monday.
The statement said the guards confessed after being detained, and that the arrests followed confessions by some of their colleagues.
Hashemi's office denounced the detentions and said it "does not represent anything new in the series of fabricated accusations, and will not attract the attention of the Iraqi people."
A statement said the guards had previously been told they were not wanted and allowed to go on leave, but were later arrested.
"Is it reasonable that people involved in terrorist activities prefer to return to a site that is sealed off by (security forces) to be arrested, or is it logical for them to take the first chance for them to run away?" Hashemi asked, noting that they had such a chance when they went on leave.
Meanwhile, rights group Amnesty International has said two women employed by Hashemi's office -- Rasha Nameer Jaafer al-Hussein and Bassima Saleem Kiryakos -- were detained on January 1 and that their whereabouts were not known.
"Amnesty International fears both women may be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment," Amnesty said, adding that their arrests appeared to be related to their association to Hashemi.
The December accusations against Hashemi came amid a wider row between the secular Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, of which he is a member, and the Shiite-led government.
Iraqiya began a boycott of parliament and the cabinet in December to protest what it charged was Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's centralization of power, and it has since called for Maliki to respect a power-sharing deal or quit.
Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi.
Maliki, a Shiite, has said his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak should be sacked after the latter said the premier was "worse than Saddam Hussein."
However, Iraqiya announced on Sunday that its MPs would return to parliament, somewhat easing the crisis, though it has not yet decided to return its ministers to the cabinet.
Iraqiya won the most seats in March 2010 parliamentary elections but was outmaneuvered by Maliki in forming a government.
Source: Agence France Presse
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