THE fugitive vice-president of Iraq has been sentenced to death after being convicted of murder on a day the country was again rocked by sectarian violence.
Tareq al Hashemi, a Sunni Muslim, fled the country earlier this year after authorities accused him of running a death squad.
His case triggered a crisis among Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish political blocs in the power-sharing government.
Yesterday's court ruling came as insurgents mounted a wave of attacks mainly against security forces. A late-night car bomb that killed 11 people in a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad brought the day's death toll to 75.
Police said the car exploded outside a coffee shop in Sadr City, a poor neighbourhood that is the seat of power for one of Iraq's most politically influential clerics and home to his militia.
Police were firing into the air to disperse the crowds after the blast, which wounded 20 people.
Violence in at least 11 cities left 240 people wounded.
Mr al Hashemi and his son-in-law were both found guilty of two murders. The sentence of death by hanging can be appealed.
Since the last American troops left in December, Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's Shi'ite-led government has been hamstrung by political deadlock among the Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs.
Mr al Hashemi, who is in Turkey, has accused Mr al Maliki of conducting a political witch-hunt against Sunni opponents, but the government said it was a judicial case.
After the fall of Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and the rise of Iraq's Shi'ite majority to power, many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been sidelined. Sunni politicians say Mr al Maliki is failing to keep to power-sharing agreements. Political tension is often accompanied by a surge in violence as Sunni Islamists and al Qaeda seek to stir up the kind of sectarian killing that dragged Iraq to the edge of civil war in 2006-2007.
There was no claim of responsibility for yesterday's attacks but security forces are a frequent target of al Qaeda in Iraq.
In one attack yesterday, gunmen stormed a small Iraqi army outpost in the town of Dujail before dawn, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding eight more.
Hours later, a car bomb struck police recruits queuing to apply for jobs outside the northern city of Kirkuk. Seven recruits were killed and 17 wounded. All of the recruits were Sunni Muslims and the early-morning attack was blamed on al Qaeda by local officials.
Kirkuk has been a flashpoint with its mix of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen, who all claim the city and the nearby oil-rich land.
Bombs stuck to two parked cars exploded in Shi'ite-dominated Nasiriyah, 200 miles south-east of Baghdad. The blasts were near the French consulate and a hotel in the city. Two people were killed and three were wounded at the hotel, and one Iraqi policeman was wounded at the consulate.
In Baghdad's eastern Shi'ite neighbourhood of Husseniyah, roadside bombs killed a policeman and a passer-by. Another eight people, including four soldiers, were wounded.
The rest of the attacks were car bombs that hit cities stretching from the southern port city of Basra, Iraq's second largest, to the city of Tal Afar north-west of Baghdad near the Syrian border.
The blast in Basra killed three people and wounded 24, while the bomb in Tal Afar killed two passers-by.
Two car bombs in southern Maysan province killed five people and wounded 40 outside a Shi'ite shrine.
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