IRAQ. FORMER MINISTER SENTENCED TO DEATH

a former Iraqi cabinet minister was sentenced to death for ordering the murder of a Sunni politician's sons.
Assad Kamal al-Hashemi, also a Sunni, resigned as culture minister and went into hiding in 2007 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, according to a court official. 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.