Iraq: 12 Iraqi Citizens Go Missing in Baghdad After Wave of Arrests in April 2014
On 30 July 2015, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly submitted an urgent action to the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED) regarding the case of 12 Iraqi citizens abducted from their homes in Baghdad in April 2014 during a wave of arrests by SWAT forces and who remain disappeared since.
On 21 April 2014 at night, members of the Iraqi security forces stormed into the houses of Abdul Aziz Al Mashhadani, Alaa Al Obaidi, Amer Abdul Majeed Al Tikriti, Hussein Al Mahlawi, Ibrahim Sobhi Moussa Alwan Al Jabouri, Moayad Mahmoud Naaman Al Hiti, Mohammad Al Ani, Mohammad Sobhi Mohammad Al Bayati, Omar Al Jabouri, Qais Al Obaidi, Raed Al Dulaimi and Zaki Al Sammak and arrested them without any warrant before taking them to unknown locations.
Witnesses reported that most of the arrests were conducted by squads of heavily armed men wearing black military uniforms and sometimes masked, likely to belong to the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) unit, a special security force that has considerably strengthened since its creation by the U.S. army during the occupation. In several instances, the forces mistreated and threatened members of the victims' families, while handcuffing and blindfolding those who they arrested before forcing them out of their homes.
In the case of Al Hiti, for example, eight men in military clothing broke into his house by climbing the neighbour's roof. The men immediately arrested and handcuffed Al Hiti, while insulting him and holding his family at gunpoint to search the house. As his wife tried to enquire who those forces were, the men beat Al Hiti's child up and threatened to beat her too. One of them eventually told her they belonged to the "Anti-Terrorism Forces of the Al Muthanna Airport," a secret prison facility in West Baghdad run by the 54th and 56th Brigade of the Army which reports directly to the Prime Minister's Office, where torture is systematically practiced. Before leaving, the men also confiscated the victim's mobile, laptop and video games.
Following the 12 victims' disappearances, their respective families submitted complaints to the Juafir Police Station, the General Prosecutor of the Central Criminal Court and the Human Rights Ministry, to no avail. They also inquired at several detention centres, including the old Al Muthanna airport detention facility and the Tasferat prison in Al Shaab Stadium area. Finally, they contacted various security services, including the Baghdad Operation Command – a regional security command set up by former Prime Minister Al Maliki – and the Fifth Division of Intelligence – a branch of the security services under the control of the Ministry of Interior –, but were not provided with any information on their disappeared relatives.
Having exhausted all domestic remedies, the 12 victims' families appealed to Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly and Alkarama, who, having established these cases as enforced disappearances, brought them to the attention of the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearance (CED) to call upon the Iraqi authorities to release these 12 men immediately, or at the very least to disclose their whereabouts and allow their families to visit them without restriction.
In view of these recurrent cases of disappearances, Alkarama urges Iraq, as one of the few States in the region to be a party to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (ICPPED) – binding upon Iraq by virtue of its accession in November 2010 – to live up to its commitments and take all necessary measures to put an end to the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearance, in particular by:
• Taking the necessary legal measures to ensure that enforced disappearance is criminalised under Iraqi law and that the penalties provided reflect their grave nature;
• Ensuring that all cases of disappearances are thoroughly, promptly and effectively investigated, and that those responsible are prosecuted;
• Adopting measures to clarify the fate and whereabouts of all victims and ensure that any individual who has suffered as a result of the disappearance is entitled to redress;
• Explicitly prohibiting secret and incommunicado detention and taking the necessary measures to ensure that all secret detention facilities are closed;
• Allowing unexpected independent inspection of all places of detention.
For more information or an interview, please contact the media team at media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1008)