Report: Fugitive Iraqi VP Meets Mossad Officers in Turkey - ghatreh
Turkish-language daily, Melliyat, quoted Ankara officials as saying that Hashemi has had a meeting with three agents of the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, and asked them for a visit to Tel Aviv. The Turkish official also told Melliyat that Hashemi intends to use Israeli influence on Washington to persuade US officials to return him to power. Hashemi, who has was given a death sentence last month by an Iraqi court for betraying his country and orchestrating terrorist operations in Iraq, had a similar meeting with Mossad agents in Turkey last month. Al Mustakbal Al-Iraqi daily quoted informed sources in the Iraqi Kurdistan region as saying that Hashemi has used the meeting to send a letter to Zionist politicians and the US intelligence bodies. The report quoted the informed sources as saying that Hashmi is getting closer to Israel after he was disappointed at the US officials' assistance. The report added that Hashemi is willing to visit to Israel in a bid to reach an agreement with Zionist regime officials in practice. On Sunday, a Baghdad court sentenced Hashemi to a fourth death sentence in absentia over a foiled car bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims. "Today, the court issued a death sentence against Hashemi and his son-in-law according to Article Four of the Anti-Terror Law in a case connected to an attempt to use a car bomb to target Shiite pilgrims," Iraqi judicial spokesman Abdelsattar Bayraqdar said. Bayraqdar said the attempted car bombing dated to December 2011 during Ashura commemoration ceremonies, when Shiite pilgrims walk along Iraq's highways to the shrine city of Karbala. On December 19, 2011, an investigative committee within the Iraqi Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi after three of his bodyguards confessed to taking orders from him to carry out the terrorist attacks. The accusations were leveled against Hashemi the day after US forces withdrew from Iraq in December 2011, and sparked a festering political row.