BAGHDAD — A lawyer for Iraq’s fugitive vice president says a judge has adjourned his trial on terror charges, adding that the proceedings will resume once a higher court decides whether the defense can question the country’s president and five lawmakers.



The lawyer, Muyyiad Obeid Al-Ezzi, said Baghdad’s Criminal Court adjourned Sunday’s trial to wait for a federal court ruling on whether President Jalal Talabani can be summoned as a character witness. The politically charged case has sparked a crisis in Iraq’s government and fueled Sunni Muslim and Kurdish resentment against Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, a Shiite who critics say is monopolizing power.



Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi, now in Turkey, denies accusations he ran death squads targeting Shiite officials. He says the case is a political vendetta by Al-Maliki.



“They (Hashemi’s defense team) presented three or four appeals, and we rejected all of them” so the vice president’s lawyers appealed directly to the federal appeals court over the conduct of the trial, one of the judges said.



“We are obliged, as a court, to listen to the appeals court’s ruling. They will examine it, and we will wait to see what they decide.” — AP