Iraq office denies headless bodies reports

Bakersfield Californian ^ | 3/12/05 | AP - Baghdad

[NormsRevenge]

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi authorities on Saturday disputed reports that 15 headless bodies were found south of Baghdad earlier in the week.

But Iraqi Defense Ministry and army officials who were the original sources for the reports insisted - when contacted again on Saturday - that the decapitated bodies had, in fact, been found.

The Government Communications Directorate's Media Relations office said in an English-language announcement that "official sources in the ministries of Defense, Interior and Health deny the news that some of mass media reported regarding finding 15 bodies beheaded in Latifiya."

An official in the Media Relations office refused to expand on the statement when contacted by The Associated Press.

Defense Ministry Capt. Sabah Yassin and Capt. Fatiq Ayed, of the Iraqi Army's 50th regiment that is responsible for the region where the bodies were found, said that a patrol of the regiment found the corpses March 8.

The patrol made the gruesome discovery inside an abandoned base of the former Iraqi army in Latifiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, Yassin, Ayed and other sources said.

An Arabic version of the Media Relations office statement said: "Capt. Sabah Yassin has nothing to do with the Iraqi army," but gave no further explanation.

The discovery was reported by The Associated Press and many other international news organizations on March 8 and 9, quoting a variety of government and military sources.

Reports about the headless bodies came to light the same day that Iraqi officials reported finding 26 other bodies in a field near Rumana, a village 12 miles east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border. Each body was riddled with bullets. The dead were found wearing civilian clothes and one was a woman, police Capt. Muzahim al-Karbouli said.