fugitive Iraqi Vice-President Tareq al Hashemi has denounced a death sentence against him as politically motivated and issued by a "kangaroo court", and insisted he would not return to the country.
Mr Hashemi also denounced Iraq's Premier, Nuri al Maliki, as an oppressor who was conspiring with fellow Shi'ites in Iran and driven by religious hatred to engineer the death sentence handed down on him for murders committed by sectarian death squads.
Sunday's verdict against a leader of Iraq's once dominant Sunni Muslim minority was accompanied by bombings and attacks on Shi'ite targets that killed about 115 people, making it one of the bloodiest days since Western troops pulled out in December.
Mr Hashemi, speaking from exile in Turkey, called for "calm" but firm opposition to a premier whose efforts to stitch together an administration uniting Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds have looked distinctly ragged since an arrest warrant for the vice- president was issued the very day after the Americans left.
"Prime Minister Maliki and his judiciary concluded the final phase of the theatrical campaign against me using a kangaroo court," said Mr Hashemi. "The verdict is unjust, illegitimate and I will not recognise it."
He claimed Mr Maliki wanted to turn the issue into a sectarian conflict and told his Sunni supporters: "Oppose his conspiracies and provocation calmly."
Iraq's domestic troubles pitch the majority Shi'ites – long oppressed until Western forces deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003 – against Sunni Arabs, as well as a substantial Kurdish minority.
Tensions are particularly high over the distribution of Iraq's potentially massive oil wealth. But the country's population of 32 million also straddles the region's ethnic and sectarian faultline – across which the Sunni, Western-allied leaders of most other Arab states confront Shi'ite, non-Arab Iran and allies including Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
For many Iraqi Sunni leaders, the Hashemi case was a clear example of political manipulation of the judiciary by a Shi'ite leader who, they say, controls the security forces by keeping a personal grip on the vital defence and interior ministries.
Since the fall of Saddam and the rise of Shi'ite leaders in elections, many Iraqi Sunnis feel they have been sidelined. Sunni politicians accuse Mr Maliki of failing to fulfil deals to share power, a charge his backers dismiss, pointing to Sunnis in key posts.
Mr Maliki has shown himself to be a tough adversary. A former Arabic teacher who worked his way up the ranks of the Shi'ite Islamist Dawa party, he has proved adept at playing Iraq's political factions against one another, and maintaining a tricky balance in regional diplomacy.
After Mr Hashemi fled the country earlier this year, Mr Maliki survived a short-lived boycott of parliament and the cabinet by the Sunni-backed Iraqiya party.
Iraq authorities blamed Sunni insurgents seeking "sectarian pursuits and sedition" for Sunday's attacks that hit security forces and cafes and mosques in Shi'ite districts.
Though violence is far from the peak seen in 2006-07, Iraqi security forces are battling a lethal mix of Sunni Islamist fighters, including a local al Qaeda wing, and former members of Saddam's Baath party – all determined to undermine the Shi'ite-led government.
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