Suspect's Death Evokes Hussein Era

Washington Post | April 9 2005

Brutal Beating Reminiscent of Methods of Ex-President's Enforcers, Relatives Say

TIKRIT, Iraq -- After the arrival of the Americans and the fall of Saddam Hussein, Hameed Rasheed Sultan and his family thought they had seen the last of the techniques favored by Iraq's old justice system: torture, disappearances and death-in-custody.

But in January Hameed's younger brother, Zawba, was arrested by Iraqi police officers at the family's home, and two days later he turned up dead at a local hospital. Pictures show he had been brutally beaten.

A senior Tikrit police official, Col. Jasim Hussein Jbara, said in an interview that Zawba died of low blood pressure shortly after he confessed to blowing up a car outside a shopping mall. There will be no investigation of his death, Jbara said.

The American military initially showed interest in the case and collected evidence, but dropped the matter after a few weeks. An Army spokesman said the U.S. military had no jurisdiction and referred all inquiries about Zawba to the Iraqi police -- the people his brother accuses of killing him.

Hameed said he saw no evidence that anything had changed with the fall of Hussein. "They are using the same methods as the former regime," he said. "If the Americans don't solve this case, there will be no solution at all, because the Iraqi side is a gang that hangs together, and they will never reveal their secrets."

In a recent human rights report on Iraq, the State Department catalogued reports of such practices as "arbitrary deprivation of life, torture, impunity, poor prison conditions -- particularly in pretrial detention facilities -- and arbitrary arrest and detention."

"The police often continued to use the methods employed by the previous regime," the report stated. "Reportedly, coerced confessions and interrogation continued to be the favored method of investigation by police. According to one government official, hundreds of cases were pending at year's end alleging torture."

Many Iraqis see the U.S. military as the country's supreme authority, but U.S. forces technically defer to Iraqi sovereignty and do not want to be seen as dictating the country's path toward democracy and the rule of law.

An Iraqi army official who works with the U.S. military and has detailed knowledge of the case, but who refused to be quoted by name because of its sensitivity, said the Americans apparently dropped their investigation because of concern that it would infringe on Iraqi sovereignty.

"The people want the Americans to arrest the Iraqis" who were behind the killing, and who are well known, the officer said. "But when we talk to the Americans about this, they say it's a matter of Iraqi sovereignty" and refuse to get involved.

In an e-mail response to questions about Zawba's death, Maj. Richard Goldenberg, a spokesman for the U.S. Army in Tikrit, said: "We recognize and respect the Iraqi Police Services and law enforcement personnel to conduct their own operations and internal investigations as needed. This is a case for Iraqi law enforcement."

Jbara, the Tikriti police colonel, runs the unit that was interrogating Zawba just before he died. Jbara said Zawba, 37, confessed to detonating a car bomb at a mall on Jan. 26 and to being a member of a terrorist group responsible for killing and wounding more than 50 people.

Two other people arrested with him -- his cousin, Bashar Subhi Sultan, 27, and a young neighbor, Safaa Ismail Douri, 15 -- also confessed to being involved in the car bombing, Jbara said, and are being held for trial. Relatives said the suspects, who were arrested early on Jan. 27, denied involvement in the bombing. Zawba, a father of two who taught construction at a local trade school, and Bashar, who studied at that school, were near the mall the day of the bombing only because they were waiting at a bus stop for a relative returning from a trip to Mecca, their brothers said in interviews.

Safaa's father, Ibrahim Ismail Douri, said his son was at the mall because he had just returned from an out-of-town bus trip. He said he last saw his son on Jan. 29 and that it was clear he had been beaten.

"I went to see my son at the police station, and I saw the police carrying him in a blanket. . . . He was hardly talking, and he said, 'Father, I was beaten and forced to confess and say that Zawba and Bashar were involved in the attack.' "

Douri said his son told him that after the explosion, he was afraid and started to run, " 'and the police said whoever ran was involved in making the bomb, so they arrested me.' "

A fourth suspect, Mahmoud Mohammed Ugab, 29, an Iraqi army officer, said in an interview that he also was arrested in connection with the bombing and tortured by officers under Jbara's command. During Ugab's interrogation, Safaa Douri came to the room where he was being held and pleaded with him to say that the four of them were behind the blast, Ugab said.

In an interview at a hospital where he was being treated for his injuries, Ugab said that a police officer beat him later as Jbara demanded that he confess to participating in the bombing. Ugab said he finally relented. But on the third day of his detention, Ugab said, a U.S. Army official who was visiting the police station recognized him from a joint posting in Tikrit's Celebration Park, asked why he was being held and ordered his release.

The officer "went to Col. Jbara's office and said, 'Mahmoud worked with me for 13 days, and I can say he has nothing to do with any attack or operation,' " Ugab said.

Around that time, Hameed and two of Bashar's brothers, Yasser and Qais, had a meeting with Jbara at the police colonel's house to ask for the release of Zawba and Bashar, Hameed and Yasser said in interviews.

According to a complaint filed by Hameed with the U.S. military in Tikrit, Jbara demanded that the families pay $5,000 each for the release of their relatives. Hameed and Yasser repeated the allegation in follow-up interviews.

In a telephone interview, Jbara denied that he or anyone solicited a bribe. "I dare anyone to say that Col. Jasim received $1," he said. "These are lies. There is an Iraqi government, and I am ready for an investigation of this."

Army Capt. Saad Hazim said in an interview that he was at home asleep on Jan. 29 when he received a telephone call at about 3 a.m. from an informant at Tikrit Hospital who said that two bodies had been brought into the morgue by police. One apparently was alive and was immediately taken to the hospital's emergency room. The near-death patient, Hazim said, was Zawba.

The second patient, who remains unidentified, died of "acute failure of the heart as a result of strong shocks," according to a copy of his death report. Hazim said that the hospital source, whom he declined to identify, told him that police evacuated the entire emergency room floor, ordering out all the doctors, nurses and patients. "The police had deployed across the whole floor, all with uniforms, flak jackets and black masks," he said.

According to a second Iraqi army officer, "The police took all the nurses and doctors to one room and locked the door in order not to reveal the secret" that their suspect was in critical condition.

Hazim said Zawba was pronounced dead about two hours later.

Jbara said that Zawba died "because of a health situation he was dealing with even before his arrest."

Pictures of Zawba's body given to The Post by his family show a deep gash above his right eye, a badly bruised right cheek bone and swollen nose. His legs are darkly discolored, with deep purple bruises, and his back and legs are scarred by what appear to be burn marks.

Challenged on his account, Jbara said: "His health situation was not good during the investigation. His blood pressure decreased, and that's in the medical documents." He refused to release the documents.

Hameed said his brother "was completely healthy" before his arrest. He said U.S. Army Capt. Michael Gruber, a liaison officer with the U.S.-Iraqi Army Joint Coordination Center in Tikrit, investigated the death and had an aide read Zawba's death report to him.

"It said there were signs of beating on the skull and torture by electricity," Hameed said. "There were also signs of beating in the chest and abdomen areas and internal damage to the kidney."

An Iraqi army official in the coordination center who reviewed the death report said it showed Zawba had burn marks and was beaten around his head. The cause of death was "torture -- the signs are completely obvious," he said. He added that it was clear from the evidence that Zawba had had nothing to do with the Jan. 26 mall bombing.

Gruber, in a brief telephone conversation, declined to discuss the case without authorization, which his superiors refused to grant.

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