Iraqi government issued on Monday an arrest warrant for Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings.
Iraqi government issued on Monday an arrest warrant for Vice-President Tareq al-Hashemi for suspected ties to assassinations and bombings.
Spokesman for interior ministry, Adil Daham, said the warrant for Hashemi was on “terrorism charges” related to alleged links to assassinations of government officials.
"An arrest warrant was issued for Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi according to Article 4 of the terrorism law and is signed by five judges... this warrant should be executed," Daham told a news conference, waving a copy of the document in front of reporters.
The state-run television aired what it said it were confessions by "terrorists" linked to Hashemi.
The men said, during the tape broadcast, they had been paid by the VP’s office to carry out killings at several government ministries as well as Baghdad police officers.
The three men shown on television detailed the assassinations they were told to carry out by Hashemi's aides including planting roadside bombs and drive by shootings of security and government officials.
One man said he was handed $3,000 as a reward by Hashemi himself.
The VP left Baghdad on Sunday for the semi-autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan, in a move that appeared to be motivated by hopes that Kurdish authorities would not turn him in. Investigative judges banned him the same day from traveling outside of Iraq. 
Two weeks earlier, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Iraqi politicians of being behind a recent spate of assassinations of senior military and civilian officials.
Maliki did not name any specific individuals, but he said political parties and security guards were involved.
"Recently, the number of assassinations has increased," he told reporters at a news conference in Baghdad.
"Certainly, this is the work of Al-Qaeda, but there have also been political assassinations and we will publicly denounce those who are behind the killings, their security guards and their political parties."
