FEARS have emerged Iraq may be plunged into fresh turmoil after more than 75 people were killed in one of the bloodiest days of the year.
Car bombs tore through mainly Shi'ite districts of Baghdad after the country's fugitive vice-president, Tareq al-Hashemi, was sentenced to death yesterday.
The violence threatens to stoke sectarian tension in Iraq where a Shi'ite-led government is battling political deadlock and a Sunni Islamist insurgency nine months after US troops left.
A senior Sunni politician, Hashemi fled Iraq after a warrant was issued for his arrest in December, a move that threatened a fragile power-sharing deal among Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions.
After his sentence in absentia yesterday, six bombs went off across the city, including outside restaurants and in commercial districts, following earlier explosions across the country.
Alla Majid, who saw an explosion in Baghdad's Sadr City, said: "I heard women screaming, I saw people running in all directions. My windows were blown out, my mother and kids were injured."
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