IRAQ took an important step toward sovereignty yesterday when its United States-appointed governing council signed an interim constitution, but the euphoria of the occasion was dampened when the country’s top Shia cleric voiced continuing objections.

The signing of the document was hailed as an “historic moment in the history of Iraq” by Muhammad Bahr al-Uloum, the council’s president.

Yet within hours Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia majority, issued a statement saying that it “places obstacles to arriving at a permanent constitution for the country that preserves its unity and the rights of its people, in all their ethnicities and sects”.

The signing of the interim constitution, which includes the Middle East’s first Bill of Rights and which outlines the shape of a future government of Iraq, had been delayed more than a week as the various ethnic and religious groups had wrangled over the issues of federalism and the role of Islam.

At a ceremony attended by Paul Bremer, Iraq’s American civilian administrator, the document was finally signed by, or on behalf of, all the council’s 25 members using an antique desk that once belonged to King Faisal I, Iraq’s first monarch. However, 12 of the council’s 13 Shia members expressed doubts.

The 75-year-old Iranian-born Ayatollah is concerned that the document would allow minority Kurds and Sunnis to veto majority decisions in which the Shia, who make up 60 per cent of the population, would hold sway.

He insisted: “Any law prepared for the transitional period will not have legitimacy until it is approved by the elected national assembly.”

The ceremony was accompanied by a fresh surge in violence. Guerrillas attacked two police stations in Baghdad and murdered a councillor in Mosul. A minibus packed with explosives was found outside coalition headquarters in Baghdad after the signing. Another council member and a police chief in central Iraq survived assassination attempts. In Kirkuk, three Iraqis were killed and 20 injured in ethnic clashes after a celebration of the signing turned violent.

Under the new law, an interim Iraqi government will assume full sovereignty on June 30, when the US-led administration ceases to exist. The new national assembly will then organise elections before the end of January. American and Iraqi officials hope that the timetable for democratic transition will ease the violence that is threatening to destabilise the country.

“This is a great and historic day for Iraq,” Adnan Pachachi, the Sunni elder statesman of the Iraqi Governing Council, said. He extolled the new Bill of Rights as “the greatest achievement of this law”, setting out the Iraqi people’s inalienable rights to an independent judiciary, freedom of expression and assembly, religious worship, education and healthcare. Out of respect to the Islamic majority, no law can be passed that contradicts widely agreed tenets of the Islamic faith. But the same articles state that all laws must fully respect democratic standards.

“Some may say the Bill of Rights is copied from the West. I answer: these rights and values are not exclusively the property of the West. They are universal and should be respected everywhere,” Mr Pachachi said.

While the constitution names Islam as Iraq’s official religion, there will be no religious courts for civil suits.

President Bush last night hailed the signing as “historic” and a critical step on the road to democracy.

A senior coalition official pointed out that all 25 members of the council, including the members of the Shia community, had taken a “strategic decision” to endorse it, despite the fact that each of them had objections to parts of it. He was confident that sovereignty would be transferred on June 30 as planned because the Iraqis themselves demanded an end to occupation. “There will be plenty of messiness, but we will certainly make the deadline,” he said.

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