Trial Nearer for Shiite
Ex-Officials in Sunni Killings
- New York Times 11/5/07 10:42 AM
November 5, 2007 Trial Nearer for Shiite Ex-Officials in Sunni Killings By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ALISSA J. RUBIN BAGHDAD, Nov. 3 — An Iraqi judge has ruled that there is enough evidence to try two former Health Ministry officials, both Shiites, in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Sunnis, many of them snatched from hospitals by militias, according to American officials who are advising the Iraqi judicial system. The case, which was referred last week to a three-man tribunal in Baghdad, is the first in which an Iraqi magistrate has recommended that such high-ranking Shiites be tried for sectarian violence. But any trial could still be derailed by the Health Ministry, making the case an important test of the government’s will to administer justice on a nonsectarian basis. The Iraqi investigation has confirmed long-standing Sunni fears that hospitals had been opened up as a hunting ground for Shiite militias intent on spreading fear among Sunnis and driving them out of the capital. Even before the case, Baghdad residents told of death threats against doctors who would treat Sunnis, of intravenous lines ripped from patients’ arms as they were carried away, and of relatives of hospitalized Sunnis who were killed when they came to visit. The case centers on Hakim al-Zamili, a former deputy health minister, and Brig. Gen. Hamid al-Shammari, who led the agency’s security force, which is charged with protecting the ministry and its hospitals. The former officials were taken into custody in February and March amid reports that they had been implicated in sectarian violence and corruption. But the status of the judicial inquiry into their activities and its findings have not previously been reported. The inquiry included testimony from nine witnesses, some of whom have been granted visas to live in the United States for their protection. If the trial goes ahead, it would be held in a new Rule of Law complex in the Rusafa section of the capital. The installation was built by the American military this year and the government has allocated $49 million to operate it. Judges live at the heavily fortified compound to protect them from assassins and renegade militias. The proceedings, which could happen in the next few weeks, would be videotaped and, according to Iraqi law, open to the public. But one looming question is whether the Iraqi government will move forward with the trial, which would shine a light on some of the most serious sectarian abuses committed under government cover. The Health Ministry could try to block the case by invoking a section of the Iraqi criminal law that precludes prosecution of officials who are carrying out their official duties. The Interior Ministry has used this tactic to preclude investigation of a senior National Police officer accused of sectarian crimes. The Iraqi judges slated to try the case have informed the Health Ministry that they want to proceed and have asked for the agency’s approval. The Health Ministry has yet to respond. The case, which involves officials allied with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, would have been difficult for the Iraqi government to take on in the past because Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki received crucial support from Sadr supporters in Parliament. Since the spring, however, when Sadr ministers withdrew from the government, Mr. Maliki has distanced himself from Mr. Sadr’s supporters, and he has allied himself with a rival Shiite group, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. “This investigation and trial can be a real statement that protected Iraqi witnesses and judges will follow the evidence where it leads, even when it leads to corrupt senior government officials,” Col. Mark S. Martins, the staff judge advocate for the command led by General David H. Petraeus, said in a telephone interview. Hospitals were one of the first places where Mr. Sadr’s supporters asserted themselves after the ouster of Saddam Hussein. The focus on hospitals was in keeping with Mr. Sadr’s efforts to model his movement on Hezbollah, which prides itself on providing medical and aid services. As early as mid-2004, the halls of the ministry were plastered with posters of Mr. Sadr and his father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr. At about the same time, large numbers of unemployed Iraqis joined the Facilities Protection Service, which was essentially a low-paying jobs program whose employees were given guns and told to guard government agencies, offices and schools. Many who took the jobs were Shiite supporters of Mr. Sadr. With those two organizations in their camp, Sadr supporters were well positioned to wield power when the country factionalized along Sunni-Shiite lines. Mr. Zamili and General Shammari were appointed to their positions at the Health Ministry with Mr. Sadr’s backing. According to accounts by witnesses interviewed for the Iraqi inquiry, they turned the ministry into a personal fief and gained control of the fuel and vehicles, and its Facilities Protection Service. Accounts from witnesses and evidence gathered for the case point to an array of potential charges. Under Mr. Zamili and General Shammari’s direction, about 150 members of the agency’s protection service were organized into a company that acted like a private militia. Using Health Ministry identification to move freely around Baghdad and ambulances to ferry weapons, they carried out hundreds of sectarian killings and kidnappings from 2005 to early 2007, the investigation reports. It found that Sunni patients at three major Baghdad hospitals — Al Yarmouk, Ibn al-Nafees and Al Nur — were abducted and many were killed, as were their relatives who came to visit them. Sunnis who went to hospital morgues to recover the bodies of their relatives were also killed, the investigation found. At the Health Ministry, the investigation found, Sunni doctors who refused Mahdi Army demands that they quit working for the agency were also killed. The head of the Diyala Province hospital, Dr. Ali al-Madawi, a Sunni, was summoned to the Health Ministry in Baghdad, disappeared and is presumed dead. At times, the Health Ministry headquarters itself was used to hold kidnap victims. To cover up many of the killings, morgue officials were ordered to draft phony death certifications, the Iraqi inquiry noted. Mr. Zamili’s activities, including alleged efforts to divert ministry funds to himself and the Mahdi Army, did not go without challenge. But several ministry officials who stood up to him were kidnapped and killed, the investigation found. Those who were murdered include Mr. Zamili’s own personal assistant. A deputy health minister, Ammar al-Saffar, vanished after telling close associates that he had been threatened by Mr. Zamili. The inspector general of the Health Ministry was also threatened in order to discourage an internal investigation, the inquiry found. Members of the security force, in a reflection of their religious beliefs, were adamant that autopsies should not be conducted on Mahdi Army fighters and threatened to kill morgue personnel who carried them out, the investigation reported. Michael Walther, an American Justice Department official who is leading a task force that is advising the Iraqis on how to investigate crimes and conduct trails, said the trial could help ease sectarian differences. “There is a perception among the Sunni population that the court is nothing more than an instrument for the tyranny of the majority,” he said in a telephone interview. “This would demonstrate that the court can be a balancing factor.” Sunnis have long complained that Baghdad’s hospitals were under control of Shiite militias and have sought to avoid them when possible. According to accounts from patients’ families and doctors, when Sunnis went to hospitals their identification cards were checked to determine if they had Sunni names. In some cases, Sunnis would be treated on admittance, but at night would be dragged from their beds and their intravenous lines ripped out. Often, their bodies would be found days later. To avoid going to hospitals, some Sunni groups have established their own clinics. “We have begun establishing small health centers inside some of the houses in Sunni areas,” said Omar al-Jubori, who heads the Human Rights Committee for the Iraqi Islamic Party. A surgeon at Khadimiya General hospital, which is in a Shiite area, but on the west side of the Tigris River, where many Sunnis live, said in an interview that the doctors there had been given strict instructions from the Mahdi militia not to treat any Sunnis who came to the hospital. “If they were going to die, we were told to let them die,” he said. “If they were going to live, they took care of it. They executed them. The nurses, the cleaners, the workers, were all Mahdi Army or sympathetic to the Mahdi, and they would report you if you tried to do something to help the Sunni patients.” He refused to be quoted by name for fear that he would be killed. One case at the hospital involved a Sunni shopkeeper who was shot in the thigh by several gunmen on motorcycles. He was taken to the hospital by a Shiite neighbor, who was initially told that the victim’s injuries were not serious, according to Hassan, an Iraqi who was involved in the episode. But in the morning the neighbor was informed that the Sunni man had died overnight. The neighbors later heard that the Mahdi Army had gone to the hospital and hanged the shopkeeper by the cord that was used to give him intravenous fluids. Michael R. Gordon reported from Washington, and Alissa J. Rubin from Baghdad. Mudhafer al-Husaini and Ahmad Fadam contributed reporting from Baghdad. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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