Iraq's Government Does Not Deliver Justice

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Alaa Abdel Raouf Tawfiq Khader, from Palestine and holding Jordanian citizenship, stands accused of membership in al-Qaeda, or in the Islamic State of Iraq army, and is accused of working with Nawaf al-Rawi. He is now held in a detention facility in Anbar, and has appeared before the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, before Judge Balegh Hamdi Hikmat. It appears the prosecution is seeking the death penalty against him.

I do not know whether Alaa was a member of al-Qaeda, but I do know that the Iraqi government is what pushed him toward extremism, and that its mistreatment of him and its disregard for the law are what drove him to acts he never wished to commit. The Iraqi government has done him a clear injustice. Here is why:

Alaa traveled to Iraq to enroll at university, where he was registered for graduate studies.

The Americans arrested him on 25/1/2004. They confiscated his Jordanian passport and accused him of entering Iraq clandestinely.

They brought him to trial on 25/5/2006, at the Harithiya Court in Baghdad, case number 2/3008.

The court sentenced him to two years in prison and acquitted him of the other security-related charges.

He should have been released by the court, since he had already served the two years. But the Americans continued to hold him, and later handed him over to the Iraqi government on 13/8/2006. I filed two protests with the White House demanding his release, one dated 27 August 2005 and the other 2 September 2005, but I never received any reply.

The Iraqis placed him in Badoush Prison, near Mosul, and allowed him to contact his family repeatedly.

Al-Qaeda attacked the prison in 2007 — I do not recall the exact date — and freed seventy Arabs, among them him. Where did he go afterward? He certainly could not return to Jordan, since he had no passport, and he may have feared turning himself in to the Jordanian embassy or to the Iraqi government; it is also possible that al-Qaeda kept him with them, since it was they who had gotten him out of Badoush Prison.

What matters is that the Americans’ and the Iraqis’ disregard for the rules of justice is what pushed Alaa toward an act that had never crossed his mind to begin with, and that he never sought out. So who is truly responsible for the situation Alaa found himself in?

Alaa appeared on Iraqiya television on 16 March 2011, in the news bulletin, and said that he had confessed to the charges against him. What are these charges? Alaa is now held in the Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime Department of the Ministry of Interior. But in a call with his father, Alaa denied any involvement with al-Qaeda. Alaa is now in al-Taji Prison, prisoner number 76302.

Alaa appeared before the Central Criminal Court in Baghdad, before Judge Balegh Hamdi Hikmat. It is important that the court first examine why the Iraqi government failed to honor a ruling of the Iraqi judiciary, before it responds to the public prosecutor, who goes beyond injustice in pressing the charge against Alaa. Why did the Iraqi government keep Alaa in prison in flagrant violation of the Iraqi judiciary’s ruling?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “حكومة العراق لا تقيم العدالة” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.