Execution of former Defense Minister, Sultan Hashem, firing of bullet of mercy against Iraq’s National Reconciliation, MP says

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Legislature of al-Iraqiya Coalition, Ahmed al-Jiboury, has described the decision of executing Iraq’s former Defense Minister, Sultan Hashem, would represent “the firing of bullet of mercy against Iraq’s National Reconciliation,” calling for his retrial, away from political motives.   “If the decision to execute former Defense Minister, Sultan Hashem, is implemented, it shall represent the bullet of mercy, fired against the National Reconciliation project,” Jibouri told IraqiNews.com news agency.   Jibouri called for Hashem’s retrial in a just and vocational court, away from political motives,” saying: “We don’t demand the pardon others from their charges.”   “Hashem had been the Minister of Defense (during the former Baath regime) and his enemies, before his friends, have been witnesses for his vocational position, and there had been nobody who had demanded personal right against Hashem, for whom the Iraqi Army officers had admitted his vocational position,” he said.   Iraq’s President, Jalal Talabani, and his 2 nd Vice-President, Tareq al-Hashemy, had refused to sign Hashem’s death sentence, issued in 2008, against Sultan Hashem and Hussein Rashid al-Tikrity, whilst they passed the death sentences against Ali Hassan al-Majid, with the three men charged with the case of mass executions against Iraqi Kurds in 1988, that left 180,000 people killed, according to Kurdish statistics.   SKH (RT) 534