Nine Iraqi Bricklayers:
Detained Iraqis Suffocate in Police Van 

Aljazeera (Qatar) 11jul2005

[Many more articles below]

Nine Iraqi bricklayers detained by security forces on suspicion of involvement with armed fighters have suffocated to death while held for more than 14 hours in a police van.

Three other suspects, who survived the ordeal of being locked up in a van in the sun, were taken to hospital on Monday morning where they were to be interviewed by officials who are investigating the case, an Interior Ministry official said.

The incident began on Sunday in the Amariyah district of western Baghdad when one of 12 bricklayers sustained gunshots during a firefight between armed fighters and police.

His colleagues took him to a hospital in the Shuala district where he was pronounced dead.

Iraqi police commandos then arrived at the hospital where they arrested the 11, along with one other man who was there accompanying his pregnant wife.

The suspects were taken to the commando headquarters in the Jihad neighbourhood in western Baghdad where they were said to have been beaten and locked in the police van from 11am on Sunday to 1am on Monday.

There have been numerous allegations of brutality, particularly by police and commandos, against detained armed suspects.

Iraqi soldiers killed

Also on Monday, armed fighters stormed an Iraqi army checkpoint north of Baghdad, killing seven soldiers, while two more were killed in a car bombing an hour later.

The first attack occurred at about 5am (0100 GMT) when armed men firing mortars and machine guns stormed a checkpoint in Khalis, about 70km northeast of Baghdad, Colonel Abdullah al-Shimmari said.

Seven soldiers were killed while three people, including one civilian, were injured in that attack.

At 6.30am (0230 GMT), a bomb in a parked car exploded as an Iraqi army patrol passed by, killing two soldiers and wounding another, al-Shimmari said.

Towns targeted

In Tal Afar, west of Mosul, five Iraqis were killed and 18 others injured in a bombing targeting al-Qalaa and Hasan Kawi neighbourhoods, Tal Afar hospital sources told Aljazeera on Monday.

Nine houses were destroyed in the bombing, the sources added.

Aljazeera also learned that US and Iraqi forces have been surrounding Buhruz city, south of Baquba, since Sunday, preventing people from entering or exiting.

The forces have launched raids and search operations in the city, arresting more than 50 Iraqis, witnesses and police sources told Iraqi journalist Walid Khalid, who spoke to Aljazeera.

Using loudspeakers, the US and Iraqi forces gave residents 24 hours to hand over fighters, or the city would suffer a massive military bombardment, Khalid reported.

The siege came after an Iraqi soldier was killed and another injured when an explosive device targeting an Iraqi army patrol detonated in the city.

In Baghdad on Monday morning, a blast rocked the Green Zone police sources told Khalid. US forces have refused to comment, he added.

Police accused

In other developments, the influential Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), accused the Iraqi Interior Ministry police commandos of killing nine Iraqi civilians, the Iraqi journalist said.

The civilians were detained by Iraqi policemen two days ago when they went to visit a man at al-Yarmuk hospital in the Khadamiya district. The man had been suffering from injuries sustained in an attack by US forces.

Hospital sources confirmed that the nine bodies were currently being held.

The AMS accused the police commandos of killing the civilians because they were Sunni Arabs from the Abu Ghraib area.

The police, however, said the men had been involved in clashes in the area of al-Amariya, west of Baghdad, Khalid said.

Sunday attacks

The US military announced on Monday that two US marines had been killed while conducting security operations in Hiyt, 150km west of Baghdad.

According to a statement, they died as a result of "indirect fire" on Sunday, a term usually employed to describe a mortar attack.

The attacks come as the US, Britain and Australia consider reducing the number of soldiers stationed in the war-torn country.

But Australia said on Monday it had not discussed taking over military command in southern Iraq from Britain, after it was reported London wanted to free up British troops for redeployment to Afghanistan.

Claim denied

British paper The Sunday Times reported that Australia and Britain were already in talks for a handover, while the Mail on Sunday, another British paper, said the UK and the US were planning to halve troop levels in Iraq by mid-2006.

But Australian Prime Minister John Howard denied the report. "There haven't been any discussions between the Australian government or Australian defence officials about that and it was frankly news to me," Howard said in Sydney.

Australia has 1370 defence personnel in and around Iraq, including 450 troops protecting Japanese engineers and training the Iraqi army.

US citizen released

Meanwhile, the US military in Iraq has freed an Iranian-born American filmmaker held as a suspected fighter after his family criticised his treatment during eight weeks of captivity.

Cyrus Kar, 44, was detained by Iraqi troops with his cameraman in Baghdad after a search of the taxi he was being driven in found washing machine timers, a common component in improvised bombs.

Kar's cameraman, Farshid Faraji, was also released.

A US Navy veteran, Kar had gone to Iraq in mid-May to work on a documentary about Cyrus the Great, a king of ancient Persia, his family said.

"He felt like he was a mushroom. He was left in the dark and fed garbage," Kar's cousin, Shahrzad Folger, said in Los Angeles after speaking to Kar following his release in Baghdad on Sunday.

Security threat

Mark Rosenbaum, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a writ of habeas corpus on Kar's behalf, called on the US government to apologise to the Los Angeles resident.

Kar's passport, laptop computer, film equipment, 20 hours worth of footage from Iran and Iraq and personal effects were taken and destroyed, Rosenbaum said.

US officials defended the detention and said Kar was freed after an FBI investigation determined he was not an enemy combatant.

"Kar was detained as an imperative security threat to Iraq under the authority of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546," the US military said.

Kar was one of five Americans the Pentagon said it was holding last week. More than 10,000 Iraqis are also being detained.

Aljazeera + Agencies 

source: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1EF56818-D387-4021-A206-9F645A1C5C28.htm 11jul2005

Iraqi Suspects Suffocate in Police Custody

Agence France-Presse 11jul2005

Nine bricklayers detained by security forces on suspicion of involvement with Iraqi insurgents have suffocated to death while held for over 14 hours in a police van.

An Interior Ministry official says three other suspects, who survived being locked up in the van in the sun, have been taken to hospital.

He says they will be interviewed by authorities who are investigating the case.

The incident started on Sunday in the Ameriyah district of western Baghdad when one of 12 bricklayers sustained gunshots during a firefight between insurgents and police.

His colleagues rushed him to a hospital in the Shuala district where he was pronounced dead.

Iraqi police commandos then arrived at the hospital where they arrested the 11, along with one other man who was there accompanying his pregnant wife.

The suspects were taken to the commando headquarters in the Jihad neighbourhood in western Baghdad where they were said to have been beaten and locked in the police van from 11:00am Sunday to 1:00am Monday.

There have been numerous allegations of brutality, particularly by police and special commandos, against detained insurgent suspects.

source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200507/s1411888.htm 11jul2005

Iraq: Nine Bricklayers Suffocate in Police Van 

AKI (Adnkronosinternational Italy) 11jul2005

Baghdad — Nine bricklayers have died after suffocating when they were left for more than 14 hours in a police van in the sun, the Iraqi interior ministry has revealed. They were arrested - along with three others who survived and were taken to be questioned - following a shootout between insurgents and police in the Ameriyah area of western Baghdad on Sunday.

One of the 12 bricklayers was shot in the firefight and rushed to hospital by his colleagues, where he was pronounced dead. Iraqi police arrested the other 11 at the hospital, along with another man who was there with his pregnant wife.

The men were all taken to the police headquarters in western Baghdad, where they were said to have been beaten and locked in the police van, where they remained from 11am Sunday until 1am on Monday.

(Slb/Aki)

source: http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.185781825&par=0 11jul2005

Suspects Suffocate in Van

News24 (Cape Town, South Africa) 11jul2005

Baghdad - Nine bricklayers detained by security forces on suspicion of involvement with Iraqi insurgents were beaten and suffocated to death after being locked for hours in a police van, said witnesses.

Witnesses said three other men, who survived the ordeal, were taken to hospital in the early hours of Monday for emergency treatment, but two were later re-arrested.

The ordeal started on Sunday afternoon in Ameriyah, Baghdad, when United States forces allegedly fired at a minibus carrying the bricklayers, killing one and wounding two.

Iraqi police commandos later arrested a group of family members from the village of Radwaniya, about 50km west of Baghdad, who went to the Shuala district hospital to enquire about those wounded.

'Cops blindfolded me'

Diya Adnan, a member of the same Sunni tribe as the bricklayers, said police commandos at the hospital, where he happened to be taking his pregnant wife, also picked him up.

He said: "They blindfolded me and tied my hands behind my back."

He said: "I was screaming and crying", adding that he was beaten and thrown into the police van about 18:00.

A 27-year-old oil ministry employee, speaking at a hastily convened press conference organised at the Um al-Qura mosque by the Sunni Muslim Scholars' Association, said: "There were 12 or 13 men there.

"Everyone was suffocating. I thought they were all dead."

Interior ministry official gives no details

He said he passed out and woke up at the hospital at about 04:00 from where he escaped with the help of his family.

An interior ministry official said a police report was filed on the case, but he declined to give details.

There had been numerous allegations of brutality, particularly by police and special commandos, against detained insurgent suspects.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Sunni religious endowments, called on the government to protect ordinary citizens from arbitrary arrest.

He warned that "ethnic cleansing" of Arab Sunni Muslims threatened to destroy the country.

source: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1735876,00.html 11jul2005

At Least Twenty Killed in Iraq

11 Iraqi soldiers killed, nine Iraqis suffocate to death in police van as diplomats promised more protection

ALI YOUSIF / Middle East Online (London) 11jul2005

BAQUBA — Iraq insurgents killed 11 soldiers Monday as Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari promised more protection for diplomats after the abduction and murder of Egypt's head of mission.

Nine of the troops were killed in a dawn raid on a checkpoint outside Khales north of Baghdad in which six soldiers and three civilians were also wounded, police said.

The insurgents opened fire on the troops and then detonated a truck bomb when reinforcements arrived. The explosives were hidden amidst a cargo of melons.

The town has seen repeated unrest by Sunni Arab insurgents. On June 15, a suicide bomber dressed in army uniform blew himself up at an army camp in Khales, killing 23 people and wounding 29.

South of the capital, two soldiers were shot dead as they searched homes near the town of Al-Azisiyah for a fugitive suspect, the army said.

The violence followed a spate of no fewer than seven suicide bombings Sunday that killed at least 34 people.

The US military revealed that two marines were also among more than a dozen people killed in other violence during the day.

The pair had been conducting security operations in the Euphrates Valley town of Hit when they came under attack on Sunday, a statement said.

Their deaths brought US losses in Iraq since the 2003 invasion to 1,749, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

Despite the continued bloodshed, the Iraqi foreign minister promised to do more to protect diplomatic missions in Baghdad after Egyptian diplomat Ihab al-Sharif's kidnapping was followed by attacks on Bahraini, Pakistani and Russian envoys.

Zebari said he had met representatives of the 45 foreign missions in Baghdad on Monday morning to offer them greater protection.

But the minister denied that his government was trying to keep tabs on diplomats "as was the case under the former regime", despite complaints from government spokesman Leith Kubba that some diplomats had been reaching out to the insurgents.

Zebari said that an Iraqi delegation was heading to Cairo to try to smooth over an exchange of recriminations over Sharif's murder, which Kubba had suggested might have followed contacts with the rebels.

"I do not think the martyr was having irresponsible and unacceptable contacts in Baghdad," Zebari said of the Egyptian envoy, although he added that "certain foreign ambassadors have had contacts with parties" linked to the insurgency.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit announced a sharp drawdown of embassy staff following the murder, but Zebari appealed to other Muslim states not to follow suit in response to an attack he blamed on "remnants of Saddam's regime".

He urged them not to bow to "the demands of terrorists and criminals who want to cut off relations between Iraq and other Arab and Islamic countries".

In other violence overnight, five people, including a child, were killed during clashes between insurgents and US-backed forces in Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq, medics said.

Gunmen also kidnapped a former official of Saddam Hussein's Baath party in the northern refinery town of Baiji, police said.

In Baghdad, Iraq's fledgling security forces drew fresh accusations of brutality after witnesses reported that nine bricklayers had suffocated in a police van on Sunday.

Three other men who survived the ordeal were rushed to hospital for emergency treatment early Monday but two were later seized from their sick beds by police commandos.

An oil ministry employee who was among those detained gave a news conference to recount his ordeal.

"Everyone suffocated," said the employee, who identified himself only as Adnan, 27.

An interior ministry official confirmed that a police report had been filed but declined to give details.

In recent months, there have been numerous allegations of brutality by Iraqi forces against suspected insurgents, some of it motivated by sectarian antagonisms.

source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13970 11jul2005