March 2, 2005
By Mariam Karouny
News My Way
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Baghdad shot and killed a judge working for the Iraqi special tribunal set up to try Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants, Interior Ministry officials said Wednesday.
Judge Barawiz Mahmoud and his son, who worked as a lawyer, were killed as they left their home in north Baghdad Tuesday.
Mahmoud's other son Maryon said the attack was politically motivated because his father was seeking to bring Saddam and former members of his Baath party to justice.
"I was sleeping and I heard shooting. I came out and saw blood running from my father's neck. My father was shot twice and my brother 11 times," he said near the scene of the shootings. A female relative wailed inside the home.
"We knew this was coming because of my father's work. He and my brother died holding their heads up high. This gives me comfort."
The judge's death was the first assassination of a member of the special tribunal, which includes around 50 trial judges, investigating magistrates, prosecutors and appeals court judges.
Elsewhere in the capital, two car bombs killed 13 Iraqi soldiers and wounded dozens. Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the bombings.
One of the blasts was outside an Iraqi army base used as a recruitment center. Six soldiers were killed and 38 people were wounded, police said. A second car bomb targeted a convoy of Iraqi soldiers, killing seven and wounding two.
"On Wednesday morning, a lion from the martyrs' brigades of Al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq carried out a heroic attack on a center of the apostate guards," Zarqawi's group said in a statement which indicated it was a suicide bombing.
In a separate statement posted on Islamist Web sites, it claimed the attack on a convoy of "apostate guards."
"Today there is an epic battle ... and we shall continue on the path of jihad until the country is ruled by God's law."
DEADLY ATTACKS
Guerrillas fighting to overthrow the U.S.-backed government have repeatedly attacked Iraqi police and soldiers, as well as people lining up to take jobs in the security forces.
Monday, a suicide bombing claimed by Zarqawi's group killed 125 people south of Baghdad -- the deadliest single attack since Saddam's overthrow.
The judge's killing came a day after the tribunal referred its first charges against defendants, saying it had enough evidence to put five former Baath party officials on trial, including Saddam's half brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti and former Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yasin Ramadan.
The trial is not expected to begin for at least another seven weeks. Saddam, who briefly appeared before a judge last July, is expected to be tried next year on war crimes charges.
Iraqi officials involved with the special tribunal say they hope the trials of Saddam's top deputies will help build a case against the former dictator, captured in December 2003.
Saddam loyalists and foreign Muslim militants, some loyal to Zarqawi, are behind much of the violence plaguing Iraq.
HUNTING ZARQAWI
General John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that improved Iraqi intelligence sources and "treason within his own organization" had led to successes against Zarqawi.
"His days in Iraq are numbered," Abizaid said.
He said that on Iraq's election day on Jan. 30, when Zarqawi sent suicide bombers to attack polling stations, only around 3,500 insurgents took part in efforts to disrupt the poll.
"And we say to ourselves: 'Why didn't they put more people in the field? Where were they?' They threw their whole force at us, we think, and yet they were unable to disrupt the elections because people wanted to vote," Abizaid said.
He said the number of insurgents was falling because of Iraq's progress toward democracy.
An alliance of mainly Shi'ite Islamist candidates won by far the most votes in the elections, confirming the political dominance of the Shi'ite majority after decades of oppression under Saddam's Sunni-dominated government.
Many Sunni Arabs boycotted the polls or were too afraid to vote, and the 20 percent Sunni Arab minority has little representation in Iraq's new parliament, sparking concerns that sectarian tensions will fuel violence.
(Additional reporting by Reuters Television in Baghdad and Ghaida Ghantous in Dubai)
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050302/2005-03-02T134338Z_01_L02296926_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-DC.html