BAGHDAD,
July 15 (Islamonline.net & News Agencies) - Thousands of Iraqi
Shiite Muslims paid their last respects to Ahmed Al-Waeli, a prominent
scholar who passed away Monday, July 14, a week after returning from a
quarter century in exile.
Known
for his scathing criticism of the ousted regime, Al-Waeli fled to Iran
and then to Britain after being sentenced to death in absentia by Saddam
regime.
His
speeches had been critical of the political situation in Iraq at the
beginning of Saddam’s rule in 1970s.
Waeli,
who suffered from a long illness, returned to Iraq because he wanted to
die in his homeland, relatives said.
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Thousands
converged for Waeli’s funeral
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Thousands
converged on Al-Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad before marching 20
kilometers (13 miles) through the capital and then boarding buses to the
Shiite holy city of An-Najaf, 180 kilometers (110 miles) to the south,
where the Shiite scholar was to be buried.
"He
was a standard-bearer of Sharia (Islamic law) who opposed sectarianism
and ethnic discrimination," said Abdul Karim Rahman, one of the
mourners.
"Iraq
has lost a great man," said Rahman, a 43-year-old driver,
explaining that Waeli's speeches were accessible in Iraq via Iranian
television and on CDs and video cassettes.
Since
the downfall of Saddam, many exiled Shiite leaders came back home,
including Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, with the U.S. warning
intolerance of any Iranian-style regime in Baghdad.
Hakim,
head of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI),
was greeted with thousands of his faithful, was greeted by flowers from
thousands of his faithful.
Shiite
Muslims form about 60 percent of Iraq's population and are most highly
concentrated in the south, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
They
went virtually unrepresented in the regime of Saddam.
