Iraqi vice-president: I am innocent Iraqi vice-president, Tariq al-Hashemi, in exile in Turkey. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images Iraq's fugitive Sunni vice-president has said that the terrorism trial that convicted him of masterminding death squads against rivals was illegitimate and accused the nation's Shia prime minister of being behind it. Tariq al-Hashemi maintained his innocence at a news conference on Monday in Turkey, where he is in exile. Hashemi was convicted on Sunday of organising death squads that killed a Baghdad lawyer and a government security official. The Baghdad court sentenced him to death by hanging.