BAGHDAD, July 11: A Shia leader, Ayatollah Mehdi Modaressi, arrived in Baghdad on Friday after a 30-year exile and called for a representative Iraqi government to consolidate on the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government.

“The time of tyranny is over, but overturning tyranny is not enough,” he told several thousand people gathered at Kazimiyah mausoleum, in northern Baghdad, after his return from Damascus.

“We need to sap the roots of its system, something that can only be done by a regime that represents everyone,” said Ayatollah Modaressi, supported by members of his Organization of Islamic Action.

“A minority must hold power no longer,” he said. “The rights of minorities are preserved if the rights of the majority are respected.”

Riad al-Abdallah, a spokesman for the ayatollah, said “attempts have been made to exclude national figures, including members of his organisation, from the transitional governing council” due to be unveiled by the US-led administration.

“We want to play a part in the action,” Abdallah said.

Ayatollah Modaressi was sentenced to death in absentia in 1970 by the Iraqi government. He fled to the United Arab Emirates, which he left in 1980 for Bahrain after Iraqi intelligence agents tried to abduct him. —AFP