Posted on 04/16/2004 1:53:27 PM PDT by knighthawk
Journalist of the Year Peter Wilson is the first reporter to obtain a brief charging Moqtada al-Sadr with killing a pro-Western rival
THE radical young cleric Moqtada al-Sadr is today holed up in Iraq's sacred city of Najaf, trying to negotiate a face-saving compromise after failing to ignite a general uprising among the nation's Shi'ite Muslim majority.
But Sadr's future does not rest with the clerics and other go-betweens who are hoping to avert a bloody showdown between his 1000-strong militia and the 2500 US troops ringing Najaf.
The fate of Sadr - the angry 30-year-old who last week pledged to destroy the coalition's campaign in Iraq - rests with a legal brief that was carefully compiled over the past year by a provincial Iraqi judge.
It is this brief that led to an arrest warrant being issued for Sadr and some of his supporters, provoking his Mahdi Army to take control of several southern towns last week, raising the deadly possibility of a united insurgency by Shi'ite and Sunni hardliners until more moderate Shi'ite leaders disowned him.
A detailed summary of the case against Sadr, which has been obtained by The Weekend Australian, shows that the prosecuting judge, Raid Juhy, has laid a much wider range of charges against the radical cleric than was previously known.
Prosecutors had announced that Sadr was charged with the murder last year of rival cleric Abdul Majeed al-Khoei, the alleged theft of religious funds from several mosques, and the murder by his guards of an Iraqi family.
But Sadr has also been charged with ordering several other murders, setting up illegal courts and prisons, inciting his followers to violence, and other breaches of the Iraqi penal code.
The barrage of charges and evidence amassed by Juhy, a Najaf-based judge, means that even if Sadr can distance himself from the killing of Khoei, he will still face serious problems in court.
The brief shows that the judge, who is responsible under Iraqi law for overseeing the gathering of evidence, has found eyewitnesses to back the charges that Sadr personally authorised the murder of Khoei, a moderate rival.
According to Colonel Mike Kelly, an Australian army lawyer serving in Baghdad as a legal adviser to the coalition forces, the first that coalition lawyers knew of Juhy's investigation was when they heard last June that he was well advanced with the case.
"He is a very professional forensic sort of lawyer who says he doesn't care about politics, he just wants to ensure nobody is above the law any more in Iraq," Kelly says.
One of the 730-odd Iraqi prosecutors and judges who kept their jobs when the coalition purged about 120 Baath Party members from the legal system, Juhy told coalition lawyers, according to Kelly, he didn't want any help from them "until it was time to arrest Sadr, which would obviously require coalition troops".
Juhy arrived in London last night to interview two survivors of the attack on Khoei last April at the holiest Shi'ite site, the shrine of the sect's founder, Imam Ali, in Najaf. The son of a former grand ayatollah, Khoei had lived in Britain since the first Gulf War and was taken to Iraq by the coalition forces as a voice of moderation and support for the US-led occupation.
On April 10, Khoei and several associates visited the holy shrine to meet the present ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani.
According to the brief, Juhy has found an eyewitness who is willing to testify that Sadr, who saw Khoei as a threat to his ambitions, became aware of Khoei's visit and planned with his associates to kill him.
A second eyewitness says that when Sadr and a group of followers entered the mosque and saw Khoei's group, Sadr's followers said; "Just say the word, master, and we will attack."
The brief says: "Sadr replied, 'Just wait, just wait'."
A funeral procession then came into the mosque, and using this distraction, Sadr called to his followers to attack.
"(The) witness reported that Sadr said, 'By the will of God, attack'."
Sadr then left the mosque and returned to his office, whereupon his followers drew AK-47s from their robes and started firing in the direction of Khoei and his group in the Khaladaria, an area in which the offices of the mosque clerics are located.
Khoei's bodyguard was armed with a pistol and returned fire.
"During the course of the firefight Khoei suffered an injury to his hand, losing a couple of fingers. When the Khoei group ran out of ammunition, Riyadh Nouri, a key Sadr lieutenant, called out on a megaphone for a ceasefire," the brief says.
"He offered Khoei a hearing to defend himself in Sadr's nearby office. Khoei agreed, but as they emerged from the Khaladaria in the mosque, the Sadr mob descended upon them and began beating and stabbing them.
"At the entrance (of the mosque), Haider al-Kaliedar (Khoei's bodyguard) died from the knife attacks. At this point, Khoei and two of his group broke free and ran to the office of Sadr, suffering from many stab wounds and the beatings. Sadr refused to open the door to the office.
"At this point, a merchant from across the street came and collected the three persons, helping them into his shop. There Khoei passed out from his stabbing and gunshot wounds. Two clerics from the Sadr office came into the shop and tested Khoei's pulse.
"They then left and reported to Sadr. The mob gathered outside the shop and Sadr left his office.
"There is a (third) eyewitness who can testify that Sadr gave the direction to take him (Khoei) away and 'Kill him in your own special way'.
"Khoei was dragged from the shop and down the street by his feet, with his head banging on each of the stone steps down to the next street level. He was dragged up that street to about 50 metres from the entrance to the Imam Ali mosque, and there a Sadr follower produced an AK-47 and shot Khoei in the head.
"The other two persons who were left in the shop when Khoei was dragged out escaped to the coalition forces compound in Najaf and subsequently left the country."
It is those two survivors of the fight that the judge has flown to London to interview.
According to Kelly, 12 of Sadr's followers -- the stabbers and shooters -- were arrested soon after the killings, and warrants were issued in August for Sadr and several of his more senior followers.
Attempts to arrest those followers, and the closure of Sadr's newspaper for inciting violence, were met by his call for all Shi'ites to rise against the coalition forces.
When there was no general uprising, Sadr said through intermediaries he was willing to stand trial but only after the coalition hands power over to Iraqis on June 30.
"We have done no deals along those lines," Kelly says. "The only thing we would do is guarantee his safety, a fair trial and the provision of a defence lawyer if he needs one."
Sadr's insistence that he be charged after the June 30 handover carries a particular danger for him.
The coalition authorities last year struck down Iraq's death penalty, meaning he would not risk execution if his case began before June 30, but Iraqi officials are widely expected to restore the death penalty once they regain sovereignty.
Is this the same newspaper that J. Eff'n Kerry criticized the coalition for closing? Is it that the liberal Kerry is so blinding idealistic that he believes that scum have the right to free press to incite violence or what?
L
Inside a mosque?
It's a good thing no coalition troops were involved here. There would be a fatwa for sure!
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