Posted on 04/22/2003 9:51:35 AM PDT by knak
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of two Iraqis who had been missing for about a month were unearthed Tuesday with their hands tied behind their backs from graves on the grounds of the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison.
Friends and relatives of the missing Iraqis were also looking for six others who were taken from a mosque about a month ago by Saddam's Fedayeen, a paramilitary group loyal to Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
"We found one of our friends and we are trying to find the others. People told us that they were killed here," said Ali Khaled Shefeq, 40, a chemical engineer, digging at the grave with a spade. He said relatives suspect the men were killed around April 2 — less than a week before Baghdad fell.
"We all feel very sad. They are brothers. What can we say? God bless them. Until now, we didn't believe Saddam Hussein is gone, that it's over," Shefeq said. "We pray he will never come back again."
A cry went up from the crowd one of the decompose bodies was unearthed.
"It's Abdul Rahman, it's Abdul Rahman!" people in the crowd shouted.
Abu Ghraib, a sprawling compound 12 miles west of Baghdad, was one of the most feared institutions in Saddam's regime, a place long described as a site of torture and executions. Four foreign journalists arrested in Baghdad last month were held in the prison for a week.
Since the regime's collapse, looters have stripped Abu Ghraib of nearly everything.
"But the United States should have waited longer and re-evaluated the need to act without United Nations Security Council backing!"-- The Hollywood Actors Coalition
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