Former bodyguards for Iraq's fugitive vice president testified Tuesday that they were ordered to kill security officials and plant roadside bombs as a politically charged terror trial against the Sunni leader got under way.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who was in Turkey but faced trial in absentia, has denied all charges against him. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

The case threatens to paralyze Iraq's government by fueling simmering Sunni and Kurdish resentments against Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who critics claim is monopolizing power. Al-Hashemi is an ardent critic of al-Maliki, whose government issued a warrant for the vice president's arrest the day after U.S. troops left Iraq last December.

Al-Hashemi has been accused of playing a role in 150 bombings, assassinations and other attacks from 2005 to 2011, according to the judicial council. The Iraqi government alleges that Sunni death squads were largely composed of his bodyguards and other employees.