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Iraq
Iraq's Sadr Slams 'Maliki Arrest' of Election Head
2012-04-15
Anti-U.S. Shiite holy man Moqtada Tater al-Sadr
... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah...
on Saturday accused the prime minister of having engineered the arrest of Iraq's electoral chief to serve his own purposes of staying in power.

Faraj al-Haidari, head of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), was jugged on Thursday for alleged corruption along with another of the body's members, Karim al-Tamimi.

"The one who ordered the arrest is to be precise brother (Prime Minister) Nouri al-Maliki
... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party....
," Sadr said.

"Maybe the arrest is to the benefit of the brother prime minister, because in my opinion, he is working on postponing or cancelling the elections," he said in a statement from his office in Najaf.

Haidari "was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock while there are other people more important than him who are walking (free) and controlling peoples' destinies," said Sadr, whose movement has 14 MPs in parliament and is a key member of Maliki's unity government

"The arrest of Haidari should be under the law and not under the power of dictatorship," he said.

Sadr's statement further ratchets up political tension, a day after the presidency of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region and a leading MP from Sunni-backed Iraqiya list said the arrests were an attack on democracy.
Posted by:trailing wife

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