Following the death warrant issued for Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, Moayed al-Ezzi, head of Hashemi’s legal team took part in an interview with al-Jazeera TV assessing this verdict.
“This was a completely political decision. Today they changed the court’s judge and panel and appointed a new team to issue the verdict against Tareq al-Hashemi,” al-Ezzi said.
“The team that began the investigation from day one was led by a judge who had a large role in adjudication and fair decision making. However, the court, against all the complaints we had previously made, was seeking to carry out its own plan of issuing the verdict,” he added.
The leading man in Hashemi’s legal team described this ruling as lacking any legal value and said, “Based on the law and the principals of the courts, until the accused is arrested the verdict must be kept in the court’s safe. Therefore this ruling lacks any legal and practical value. In our opinion, this verdict is not even worth requesting an appeal for, and this subject has no legal value until it becomes relatively definite.”
In response to al-Jazeera’s question on the impact of this verdict throughout Iraq, Moayed al-Ezzi said, “This ruling will have a negative impact because Tareq al-Hashemi is a leader of the people who was elected by the people.”