Fugitive Iraq VP leaves Kurdish zone for Qatar

Iraq's fugitive Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, at the center of a political row that has jeopardized Iraq's sectarian balance, left the autonomous northern Kurdish region for Qatar on Sunday, a statement from his office said.   

Hashemi, one of the top politicians from the Sunni minority, is accused by Baghdad's Shi'ite-led government of running death squads, a charge he denies. He has been holed up in the Kurdish zone since Baghdad issued an arrest warrant for him in December.   

The government includes Kurds and Sunnis under a power sharing deal designed to calm tensions that led to extreme sectarian violence in 2006-07 when thousands of Iraqis were killed.   

Hashemi's office said he had left the country to visit predominantly Sunni Qatar, which Iraq said was a clear defiance of his arrest warrant.   

"Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi left on Sunday morning... heading to Doha in the brotherly state of Qatar in accordance with an invitation he received previously," the statement said.   

"It (the visit) is expected to last for a few days, then the vice president will visit other countries, which will be announced later, then he will come back... to his residency in Iraq's Kurdistan."   

Qatar's state news agency said Hashemi had arrived in the country for an official visit due to last a few days.While Iraq's political crisis has abated somewhat in recent weeks, Hashemi has remained in the Kurdish region, saying he cannot receive a fair trial in Baghdad.   

The Kurds, who have their own courts and security forces, have been drawn into Hashemi's dispute with the central government by sheltering him.   

Earlier on Sunday, Maliki told a press conference that any country who is a member of the Arab League should not receive Hashemi but said it was up to international authorities to ask a state hosting the vice president to hand him over.

Reuters