Iraqi police tied to death squads

A 1,500-member Iraqi police force with close ties to Shiite militia groups has emerged as a focus of investigations into suspected death squads working within the country's Interior Ministry. US military officials say they suspect Iraq's national highway patrol of being deeply involved in illegal detentions, torture and extrajudicial killings. Last month, Iraqi army soldiers stopped a 22-member squad of uniformed highway patrol officers at a nighttime checkpoint in northern Baghdad and discovered a man in their custody who told them the police planned to kill him. His contention was supported by confessions of officers in the squad, US advisors said. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a Shiite with close ties to the Badr Brigade, a paramilitary group, has been at the center of allegations of abuse at the hands of Iraqi security forces. The minister's notoriety rose last year as the bodies of hundreds of men–mostly Sunni Arabs–started appearing in sewage treatment plants, garbage dumps and desert ravines. Most of the bodies showed signs of torture and execution-style killings. Many families of the deceased said their kin had last been seen in the back of a police vehicle. The Shiites, who constitute about 60 percent of the Iraqi population, were severely repressed under Saddam Hussein's regime, which favored the Sunni minority. The Shiites came to power in the wake of the US-led invasion of March 2003. Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a US military spokesman, said that the Interior Ministry itself was leading the investigation into the suspected highway patrol death squad. After the suspected death squad was stopped last month, US police advisors said four members of the squad confessed to several sectarian killings. The highway patrol officers were asked, "'Who are you doing this for?'" said a US military officer who is involved in training Iraqi troops and has knowledge of the interrogations of the suspected death squad. "And they're telling us, 'Jabr.'" Sunni Arab leaders complain that an earlier investigation into alleged police abuse has yet to show results. In November, a US Army unit discovered a secret detention and torture facility run by police officers affiliated with the Badr militia. In all, 169 people had been detained at the secret prison, and photos showed that some inmates had been severely beaten and malnourished. Jabr pledged to investigate the origin of the detention facility and the possible existence of other secret prisons, even as he downplayed the abuse that had taken place there.