Good morning Valin.
Yes it is!
And now for todays ray of hope.
How Iraqi judge cornered Sadr
The Australian 4/17/04 Peter Wilson
Posted on 04/19/2004 9:49:02 AM CDT by Valin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1120405/posts 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.
(snip)
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.