Iraqi VP urges UN to probe death of guards

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Al-Hashemi, who fled to northern Iraq after being accused of running a death squad, said one week ago that his bodyguards had been tortured to death while in detention. AP photo

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has sent a letter to U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez with a request to start an investigation about the death of his bodyguard Amir Sarboot Zedan al-Batawi, who he claimed was tortured to death while in Iraqi custody.

“Two of my bodyguards were killed by extreme torture while they were under investigations run by security forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. We submitted the evidence to the U.N. for an investigation. The human rights situation in Iraq is catastrophic now,” al-Hashemi told the Hürriyet Daily News in a recent interview.

Iraq’s Sunni vice president, who fled to northern Iraq after being accused of running a death squad by al-Maliki, said one week ago that his bodyguards had been tortured to death while in detention. Al-Hashemi and many of his employees have been accused of ties to terrorism.

In the letter al-Hashemi said the death of his bodyguard al-Batawi was caused by “severe torture that he was exposed to during a preliminary judicial investigation run by security forces controlled by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as command in chief.”

Al-Hashemi has asked Mendez for “urgent assistance and help … to investigate thoroughly the facts surrounding the crime incident in order to name the parties responsible and put them forward for prosecution.”