Sunni Woman's Rape Claim Gets Support

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
February 24, 2007
Despite assertions by Iraq's prime minister that a Sunni woman lied when she said police officers raped her, the investigation is continuing and two police officers are being held.
By Richard Mauer and Mohammed al Dulaimy, McClatchy News Service
BAGHDAD - A Sunni Muslim woman's allegations that she was raped by three members of Iraq's Shiite-dominated police force took a startling turn Friday when a Sunni human rights official said that a government committee has uncovered strong evidence to support her claims.
The official, Omar al Jabouri, said that one of the woman's alleged attackers and an accomplice have been in custody since Wednesday, and that a four-member special investigative panel has continued to investigate the case despite Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's public statements that the woman lied.
In a move that's also likely to anger Iraq's Shiites, U.S. troops on Friday detained the son of a prominent Shiite leader for several hours. Amar al Hakim, whose father, Abdulazziz al Hakim, heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was taken into custody at a roadblock in eastern Iraq shortly after he crossed over from Iran.
U.S. officials didn't respond to requests for information, but in Najaf, Anwar Al Shimirti, a provincial council member and SCIRI representative, said Hakim was carrying a ''huge amount of money'' when he was stopped.
The panel investigating the rape allegation is led by the head of the Interior Ministry's intelligence service, Gen. Hussein Kamal. Jabouri is an observer to the panel on behalf of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al Hashemi, a Sunni.
The investigation is complicated because the woman has been charged with supporting the Sunni insurgency, Jabouri said.
On Wednesday, Maliki's office released a portion of a medical examination that Iraqi officials said proved there had been no rape. U.S. rape experts, however, said it showed injuries consistent with sexual assault.
American officials have said little about the case, other than to acknowledge that the woman was treated at an American-run hospital.
She identified one officer as having been in the room when the attack occurred.
The officer was removed from the line and detained. She continued looking at the faces, then stopped again. This time she shouted, ''This is the one who did it to me!'' She hauled back and slapped his face. Then she collapsed in a heap, Jabouri said.
While she lay on the floor, the second officer was escorted from the room.
As the members of the committee tried to revive her, someone brought in a man wearing slacks and a red kaffiyeh, the Arab headdress. One of the investigators lifted the woman's face and showed it to the man.
''Is that the one?'' he asked.
''Yes,'' said the man in the kaffiyeh.
Jabouri said no one told him what that was about, but he later heard Gen. Kamal tell a radio interviewer that the woman had been charged with being an accessory to kidnapping after the victim positively identified her as the cook in a Sunni insurgent house where he was kept.
 
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