U.S. Transfers Last Prisoner to Iraqi Government
CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: Friday, December 16, 2011 at 2:08 p.m. Last Modified: Friday, December 16, 2011 at 2:08 p.m.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration turned over the last remaining American prisoner in Iraq to the Iraqi government on Friday, a move likely to unleash a political backlash inside the United States even as the American military draws closer to completing its exit.
The prisoner, Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese suspected of being a Hezbollah operative, is accused of helping to orchestrate a January 2007 raid by Shiite militants who wore American-style uniforms and carried forged identity cards. They killed five American soldiers — one immediately, and four others who were kidnapped and later shot and dumped beside a road.
On Friday morning, the military notified families of the victims of the raid that Mr. Daqduq was being transferred to the Iraqi police, and Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, confirmed the transfer.
“We have sought and received assurances that he will be tried for his crimes,” Mr. Vietor said. “We’ve worked this at the highest levels of the U.S. and Iraqi government, and we’ll continue to discuss with the Iraqis the best way to ensure that he faces justice.”
The administration had wrestled with whether to turn Mr. Daqduq over to the custody of the Iraqi government — as the United States did with all its other wartime prisoners — or to take him with the military as it withdraws. Republicans had called for him to be brought to the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to face a trial for war crimes before a military commission. starnewsonline.com |
