Exiled cleric returns home to call for free Islamic state

Thousands of Shia Muslims line the road to Basra to greet religious leader who was jailed and tortured by Saddam

The most prominent leader among Iraq's majority Shia Muslims yesterday crossed into the country for the first time after 23 years of exile and told an ecstatic rally of up to 100,000 supporters that Iraq must have a "totally independent" government.

The venerated cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim – jailed and tortured in the 1970s for opposing Saddam Hussein – arrived in Basra on the first leg of a journey that will end with what is expected to be a tumultuous welcome tomorrow here in his home base of Najaf, the city most sacred to Shia Muslims.

After thousands of supporters lined the 12-mile road from the Iranian border to Basra, throwing flowers and trying to touch his car, the 63-year-old cleric, addressing a packed stadium in the city, was several times interrupted with chants of: "Hakim, Hakim, go, go, we are your soldiers of liberation" and "Yes to Islam, no to Saddam". At several points in the road the cleric, wearing a black turban, wound down the window and waved at the welcoming crowd.

Ayatollah Hakim, the last politically prominent exile to return to Iraq, is leader of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the five groupings represented on the committee steering the process to a transitional government. Many Shias see him as the best hope of reversing the suppression of their political aspirations throughout Saddam's period in power.

He told the rally that the new government "must be chosen by Iraqis", and added: "We will not accept a government that is imposed on us. We have gone such a long way in such hard times, we are now on the road to security and stability. This is a jihad [holy war] of reconstruction after the destruction of the oppressors. This must be a march for independence ... We used to say yes to freedom, now we say yes, yes to independence."

Ayatollah Hakim has sought to play down fears about his links to the anti-Saddam – and previously Iranian-based – Badr Brigade units, stressing that he is not seeking to remake Iraq in the image of Iran's Islamic republic. He also went out of his way yesterday to declare that: "We don't want an extremist Islam", adding that he sought "an Islam of independence, justice and freedom".

The security issue, he went on, "is the first one we will tackle ... We are ready to establish security for all Iraqis if allied forces allow us and do not interfere in Iraq's affairs."

At Najaf, which is already festooned with pictures of Ayatollah Hakim and green Shia flags emblazoned with quotations from the Koran in preparation for his arrival tomorrow, the cleric will first visit the holy tomb of the 7th-century Ali ibn Abu Talib, the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed, whom Shias regard as his legitimate successor. The ayatollah will then plunge into a hectic series of meetings with local and national religious, political and tribal leaders.

The holy city, which like every other has been disfigured by uncollected garbage since the war, has been specially cleaned up in an operation urged on local people by SCIRI and what remains of the pre-war municipal authority here.

There are fears in Najaf that an attempt could be made on the ayatollah's life by remnants of Fedayeen fighters still loyal to Saddam Hussein, or by the lawless armed gangs who, many residents repeatedly complain, roam the city, particularly at night. But the local leader of SCIRI, giving his name only as Haji Hassan, said yesterday at the group's headquarters in a former Baathist municipal office (attacked by Badr units with rocket-propelled grenades only three years ago): "We have taken careful precautions to protect him. The people of Najaf are his own people, and they will also protect him."

Residents of this city, obsessed by politics as well as by religion, spoke of their hopes that Ayatollah Hakim would help to usher in a stable Iraqi state, no longer deformed by tribal ethnic rivalries. However, many still refused to be named for fear of reprisals by guerrillas still loyal to Saddam Hussein.

While many support the Ayatollah's aspiration for an Islamic state, opinion differs on what form this should take. One man, Ayad Abdul Wahad, said he wanted a fundamentalist regime like Iran's, but several others said they would prefer a moderate democratic Islamist state on the model of Turkey.

Yet another, a 35-year-old law student Sabah Hanoudi, denied entry to his university at Kufa for many years for refusing to join the Baathist party, said Iraq should be a "civilised, high-technology state" like some of the emirates in the Gulf.