WORRISOME WARRANTS AND OTHER TALES FROM BABIL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000013 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/22/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM SOCI PTER KDEM IZ SUBJECT: WORRISOME WARRANTS AND OTHER TALES FROM BABIL HILLAH 00000013 001.2 OF 002 CLASSIFIED BY: Charles F. Hunter, Babil PRT Leader, REO Al-Hillah, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (U) This is a Babil PRT cable. ¶2. (C) Summary: Two cases involving a total of fifteen warrants issued in Karbala for Sunni citizens of Babil have the provincial police chief and chief justice worried that extradition may serve as cover for nefarious sectarian or anti-Ba'athist ends. One of the supposedly wanted men enjoys parliamentary immunity as a member of the Council of Representatives. In an unrelated case, a Sadrist official threatened that Jaysh Al-Mahdi (JAM) would "take over" Al-Hillah if five JAM kidnappers were not released from custody. It would be premature to say that the rule of law is under direct attack in Babil, but these developments certainly bear watching. End summary. -------------- FIVE FISHY WARRANTS~ -------------- ¶3. (C) Early in January 2007, Babil Police Chief MG Qais Hamza Abboud Al-Ma'mouri contacted Coalition Forces and the Babil PRT to signal his concerns about arrest warrants he had received from Karbala. Dated November 29, the five warrants had been passed to Qais in December by Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Khabat, the Babil representative of the Minister of State for National Security Affairs. The delivery channel was the first red flag for Gen. Qais, as it did not conform to the three authorized means of transmitting such documents between provinces: either via the Ministry of Interior, from the issuing province's court directly to the other province's police, or between the police forces of the two provinces. ¶4. (C) The warrants' originator also struck Gen. Qais as out of the ordinary. All of them were signed by Judge Muhammad Abbas Shakeh, of the Ministry of Justice's Internal Affairs Department in Karbala. This department in any province would ordinarily deal with public-sector corruption cases, yet none of the wanted men works for the government. Still another alarm went off for Qais from the fact that all five are Sunnis and former Ba'athists who reside in Babil, not Karbala. A former Air Force general himself, Qais personally knows one of the men, a former Army general named Basil Abbas Hamad Al-Sahhaf, and has no reason to suspect that he has been involved in wrongdoing. The other four are Nadib Ali Khalil Al-Sultani, a former Army captain; Hatim 'Ubaid 'Ubais Al-Sultani, a former Army sergeant major, and two civilian former Ba'athists, Musa Hassuni Salman Al-Amidi and Karim Jabur Khedair Al-Nafi'e (NFI). ¶5. (C) Based on these three factors, Qais suspected that the warrants, which themselves are apparently legitimate, could be merely a cover for an attempt to eliminate these individuals on sectarian or anti-Ba'athist grounds. His fear was grounded in precedent: Qais cites a case when a Sunni former colonel from Babil, after being extradited and having the charges quickly dropped, was kidnapped outside the courthouse in Tuwairij (on the Babil-Karbala border) immediately after being released from custody. ¶6. (C) Despite his misgivings Qais took the first step legally required of him, by submitting the warrants to the Babil court for authentication. The Babil chief judge, A'ad Hatif Jabr, shared Qais' suspicions but had no grounds or standing to delve into the substance of the case. He and Qais agreed that they should delay extradition and seek to have the case transferred to Babil. But after calls came from the Ministry of Interior and from an individual identifying himself as being from the Prime Minister's office ordering the enforcement of the warrants, the arrests were made and the men transported to Karbala on January 11. (Note: The Babil police reported seizing Kalashnikovs during at least one of these arrests. End note.) The PRT's Rule of Law coordinator has been advised that an attorney is working to have the case transferred to another venue (NFI). -------------- THEN TEN MORE~ -------------- ¶7. (C) A more recent case followed a similar pattern: warrants from Karbala (these dated November 9) for an all-Sunni group of North Babil residents, ten in all, supposedly wanted for carrying out sectarian kidnappings and killings. Among the dubious elements in this iteration is the fact that one warrant is for a sitting member of the Council of Representatives, Hassan Daigan Khdeir of Al-Tawafuq (the Iraqi Accord Front),who is one of Babil's two Sunni parliamentarians and in any event HILLAH 00000013 002.2 OF 002 enjoys parliamentary immunity. Another is for former Iskandariya police chief Ali Fakhri, whom the Ministry of Interior compelled Gen. Qais to fire against his will earlier in January. (Note: Qais asserts that sectarian killings of Sunnis have increased noticeably around Iskandariya since the arrival of the MOI-appointed local chief. End note.) The others are laborers, a contractor, a photographer, and a police sergeant major. Qais refused to submit the warrants for authentication because he received only photocopies; with Judge A'ad's concurrence, he has sent them back to Karbala with a request for original documents. -------------- AND A THREATENED JUDGE -------------- ¶8. (C) On January 16, Judge A'ad informed the PRT legal advisor of an apparent case of intimidation against one of his judges. Five people affiliated with Jaysh Al-Mahdi (JAM) had been captured the previous week in the Al-Shawi neighborhood of Al-Hillah after taking a hostage. Soon thereafter a representative of the Office of the Martyr Sadr (OMS) came to see Investigative Judge Nasser to demand the men's release so that OMS could "deal with them themselves." If they weren't turned over, he warned, JAM would "take over" the city. Nasser stood his ground and the OMS official left. To date there has been no indication of an attempt to implement the threat. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) Taken together, these three incidents are worrisome but do not yet constitute a clear indication that the rule of law is under direct attack in Babil. Gen. Qais and Judge A'ad are understandably vigilant both on principle - law enforcement and the judiciary must remain above any manipulation - and to protect Babil province's hard-earned reputation for probity. Though these two men often credit Coalition Forces and the PRT for enabling them to withstand threats, including assassination attempts, it is mostly out of personal courage and conviction that they continue in their work. The PRT and our military colleagues will continue to monitor these troubling cases and support our interlocutors' efforts to serve and defend all Babil's law-abiding citizens. End comment. HUNTER