Former Iraq minister sentenced to death

A former Iraqi cabinet minister has been sentenced to death for ordering the murder of a Sunni politician's two sons.

Assad Kamal al-Hashemi, also a Sunni, resigned as culture minister and went into hiding last year when he was first charged in the February 2005 attack on parliamentary candidate Mithal al-Alusi. Al-Alusi's two sons were killed in the attack.

The Central Criminal Court of Iraq handed down a guilty verdict and death sentence in absentia for al-Hashemi on Wednesday, according to a court official.

Sunni members of the cabinet suspended their participation in Iraq's government last summer after al-Hashemi was accused in the plot. They cited the prosecution of al-Hashemi as one reason, calling it an attempt by the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to marginalize the Sunni bloc.

Al-Hashemi was part of the General Conference of the Iraqi People, which is part of the Iraqi Accord Front, the country's largest Sunni bloc. It rejoined the cabinet last month. He was an imam at a Baghdad mosque at the time of the killings.

Two people who planned and carried out the attack confessed that they took orders from al-Hashemi, an Iraqi government official has said. The arrest warrant naming al-Hashemi was issued specifically for the killings of al-Alusi's sons, not the failed attempt against al-Alusi.

Al-Alusi was a leading figure in the secular Iraqi National Congress Party but was expelled after visiting Israel. He was elected to Parliament as the head of his own group, the Iraqi Democratic National Party, which holds one seat.

On Saturday, an assistant to the minister of culture was killed. The assistant, Kamel Shiyah, died when militants opened fire on his vehicle, according to an Interior Ministry official. Shiyah's guard was injured in the shooting and taken to a hospital.