Tuesday, June 15, 2004
A car bomb killed at least 13 in a convoy of Westerners.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The new Iraqi government wants custody of Saddam Hussein and all other prisoners by the time sovereignty is handed over at the end of this month, the interim prime minister said.
U.S. forces have said they will continue to hold up to 5,000 prisoners believed to be a threat to the coalition even after the June 30 restoration of sovereignty. They say as many as 1,400 detainees will either be released or transferred to Iraqi authorities.
But in an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Iraqi officials expect to take possession of Saddam and all other detainees with the transfer of power.
"All the detainees will be transferred to the Iraqi authorities and the transporting operation will be done within the two coming weeks," Allawi said. "Saddam and the others will be delivered to the Iraqis."
Trial planned
He said the former Iraqi president would stand trial "as soon as possible" but gave no specific time frame. The detainees and "Saddam as well will be handed to the Iraqi government, and you can consider this as an official confirmation," he added.
Saddam has been in American custody at an undisclosed location in Iraq since his capture last December near Tikrit. His status has been under discussion as the formal end of the U.S.-led occupation approaches.
The Baghdad-based spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said coalition authorities must file criminal charges against Saddam or let him go when sovereignty is transferred.
The new interim government is trying to assert itself even as Iraqi and U.S. forces struggle to maintain order in Iraq.
Violence goes on
Today, dozens of angry Shiites gathered in Baghdad's Firdous Square for the funeral of six Iraqi Shiite truck drivers whose bodies were found the day before in Ramadi. Mourners said the men were butchered by Sunni extremists in Fallujah after police handed them over to insurgents.
On Monday, a car bomb destroyed a convoy of Westerners in Baghdad, killing at least 13 people, including three General Electric workers and two bodyguards.
The blast, during the morning rush hour near busy Tahrir Square, was the second vehicle bombing in Baghdad in two days.
Iraq's interior minister said he believed foreigners carried out the attack, and Allawi accused Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi of trying to disrupt the transfer of sovereignty. Al-Zarqawi, believed to have contacts with Al-Qaida, is accused in last month's decapitation of American Nicholas Berg.
The dead included three employees of Granite Services Inc., a wholly owned, Tampa, Fla.-based subsidiary of General Electric Co., and two security contractors employed by Olive Security of London. The Westerners included one American, two Britons, one Frenchman and one victim of undetermined nationality, officials said.
U.S. officials said 62 people were injured, including 10 foreign contractors. Hospital officials said many of the wounded had lost limbs.
The foreign victims were helping to rebuild power plants, Allawi said.
GE said Monday it has no plans to pull its workers out of the country.
"We remain committed to the reconstruction of Iraq," said GE spokeswoman Louise Binns.
Shiite drivers
During the funeral service at Firdous Square today, mourners said the drivers were hired by Iraqi contractors to take tents to the Fallujah brigade, organized last month to assume security from the Marines in the rebellious city west of Baghdad.
The drivers were stopped June 5 on their way back to Baghdad by armed men. Some drivers escaped and made their way to a police station, where officers handed them over to a Muslim preacher, who refused to let them go because they were Shiites, mourners said.
One man, Alaa Mery, said that on June 8, he went to Fallujah to negotiate for the hostages' release. He said he met with some Syrians who identified themselves as members of the extremist Wahhabist sect and said they were holding the drivers because they collaborated with the Americans.
The Syrians demanded $3,000 for each of the missing men, he said. The families could not afford the ransom.
"Fallujah clerics and people made a big fuss regarding Abu Ghraib torture, but now they are killing and mutilating Muslims," Mery said, referring to the American abuse of Iraqis at the Abu Ghraib prison. "They are not resistance. They are a copy of Saddam."
Police Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman confirmed that seven truck drivers were killed in the Fallujah area. The discrepancy in the numbers could not be explained.
There was no explanation why the Fallujah police handed over the men to an extremist cleric rather than provide them protection.