VP Hashimy says PM Maliki’s charges for fear of “coup d’etat”

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq‘s Vice-President, Tariq al-Hashimy, has said that the charges directed against were part of a pre-emptive strike by Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, fearing an attempted “coup d’etat” against him, according to an interview with the London-based al-Hayat newspaper on Wednesday. “Maliki could have been misled by information about a “coup d’etat” against him, which in turn made him lean towards charging me as part of a pre-emptive strike,” Hashimy said, adding that he won’t lean to internationalize his case, if granted a fair trial. “This crisis may encourage some Iraqi Sunni Provinces to transform them into (administratively and economically independent) “Regions,” Hashimy said, calling on the National Alliance to “present a substitute for Maliki to chair the government,” adding that “the country might face similar crisis, if Maliki continues to hold his post.” Hashimy told a news conference in northern Iraq‘s Kurdistan capital city of Arbil last week he had demanded the transfer of his investigation case for Kurdistan Region, where he stayed, considering the charges against him with having been caused by a sectarian agenda, following the demands by some provinces to transfer them into “Regions,” along with shouldering Maliki with responsibility of charging him with “terrorism,” stressing that he would demand to return all his rights in the event of proving his innocence. Noteworthy is that the Iraqi Interior Ministry had announced early this month the issuance of an arrest warrant against Tariq al-Hashimy, after the Ministry’s screening on the semi-official al-Iraqiya TV Satellite Channel confessions by 3 of his body-guards, saying that he had ordered them to carry out a series of assassinations and explosive charges blasts since 2009. The said developments have taken place at a time when the US forces have completed their withdrawal from Iraq, according to an Agreement, signed between Baghdad and Washington at the end of 2008. SKH (TI)/SR 1409