No pledge to US on Hezbollah militant’s release- Iraqi official
Bagdad, Asharq- Al-Awsat – Baghdad has denied that it had pledged to the United States not to release Lebanese Hezbollah’s operative Ali Musa Daqduq, who was received by the Iraqi authorities from the Americans late last year after the US withdrawal from Iraq was completed. Baghdad’s denial co
Bagdad, Asharq- Al-Awsat – Baghdad has denied that it had pledged to the United States not to release Lebanese Hezbollah’s operative Ali Musa Daqduq, who was received by the Iraqi authorities from the Americans late last year after the US withdrawal from Iraq was completed. Baghdad’s denial contrasts with what US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said two days ago, namely that his administration has received a pledge from the Iraqis not free Daqduq.
Ali al-Musawi, the media adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said in a statement to Asharq Al-Awsat that “actually, what we hear [from the Americans] is strange talk because what we have always said and what we say now is that the issue of Ali Qaqduq is a judicial one, and that he was handed over to the Iraqi side to try him in Iraq. Therefore, we as Iraqis will abide by any sentence that is issued.” In response to a question regarding Daqduq’s acquittal issued by the Iraqi courts, and whether he will be released or not, al-Musawi said: “regardless of any other details, we respect Iraq’s judiciary as an independent authority, and this is what we have said all along. If the judiciary decides to release him, then the only thing we can do is to respect the decision.” He denied that the Iraqi Government “has made any commitments of any sort to the Americans concerning Daqduq or anyone else”. He added: “What binds us with them (the Americans) is a strategic framework agreement, and we are committed to it as are they.”
The US Defense Secretary previously said in a statement to Reuters that the US has received assurances from Iraq that Daqduq will not be freed. He said: “We’ve gotten a commitment from them that they would keep him incarcerated and that they would keep him in custody.” He added: “We expect them to stand by that commitment.”
Just before their withdrawal from Iraq at the end of last year, the US forces handed over Qaqduq to the Iraqi authorities. The US Army announced the arrest of Qaqduq in southern Iraq in July 2007. Earlier that year, in an attack in Karbala, gunmen killed a US soldier and kidnapped four others, whom they later killed, in an organized operation that the US Army attributed to al-Quds Corps, the elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The US forces consider Daqduq the most prominent element behind this operation. Daqduq, who the US claims arrived in Iraq to train insurgents with the help of al-Quds Corps, was the last prisoner to remain under the custody of the US forces, before they handed him over to the Iraqis after completing their withdrawal from the country.