Sadr blames U.S. for Iraqi lawmaker death

By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr blamed the United States on Friday for the assassination of a lawmaker who belonged to the cleric's parliamentary bloc, killed a day earlier in a bomb attack.

In the Baghdad district of Sadr City, men cried and shouted slogans as they carried and walked alongside Saleh al-Ugaili's coffin, draped in the Iraqi flag, before it was taken to a cemetery in the holy southern Shi'ite city of Najaf.

"The martyr gave most of his time to eject the occupiers ... And for this reason the hand of the hateful occupation and terrorism killed him," Sadr said in a statement as hundreds of supporters gathered to bury Ugaili.

"God is the greatest, America is the enemy of God," mourners chanted in Najaf after Friday prayers.

Ugaili was killed on Thursday when a blast struck his car in the Habibiya district of eastern Baghdad. It was not clear who was behind the attack, which Sadr blamed on the United States. The cleric is opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq.

There have been several bomb blasts in Baghdad in recent weeks, and police said at least 12 people were killed and 22 wounded on Friday when a car bomb exploded in the commercial district of Abu Dsheer in the south of the capital.

Ugaili's killing prompted condemnations from U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and military commander General Ray Odierno, who called his killing an "attack against Iraq's democratic institutions" and a "heinous crime."

Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations' representative in Iraq, called the killing "an outrageous crime aimed at perpetuating instability in Iraq."