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http://www.msnbc.com/news/924576.asp?0cv=CB10
Killings preceded fall of Baghdad, Hussein
SALMAN PAK, Iraq, June 9 — U.S. and British forensic experts who examined an intelligence compound outside Baghdad today said the site was a mass grave that likely contained the remains of political prisoners and army deserters killed in the days or weeks before President Saddam Hussein fell from power.
“IT CERTAINLY is a grave site,†said U.S. Army Col. Ed Burley, referring to the sandy trough inside a former Iraqi security forces compound near the village of Salman Pak where bodies were exhumed this weekend. “This is the first grave we’ve found of such recent vintage.â€
Burley, coordinator of the forensics team looking for mass graves in Iraq, said witnesses from Salman Pak told him that there had been more than 100 bodies in the grave, but it appeared that many of the bodies had been removed, in some cases by relatives. The forensic experts exhumed one body last week, buried about a foot deep in the earth, and determined that the victim had been recently executed. The experts said this discovery supported the witness accounts.
The experts’ assessment also seemed to support reports that Hussein’s government executed people just before losing its grip on power two months ago. Soldiers captured by U.S. forces told them that internal security forces had taken Iraqi army deserters and suspected political opponents of Hussein to unknown destinations.
Burley and a team of experts from the British-based Inforce Foundation, a nonprofit organization that investigates genocides and war crimes, visited the site today. An expert in geology, Roland Wessling, who is also an archeologist with Inforce, examined the dirt and surveyed the site, which is 20 miles south of Baghdad. Wessling said earth at the site appeared to have been disturbed recently.
Burley said he suspected that the victims were either “prisoners killed immediately before the war,†or deserting soldiers killed just before the fall of Baghdad.
MOSTLY DESERTERS AND PRISONERS
Two witnesses from the village said in interviews Sunday that they had found 115 bodies stacked in a ditch inside the compound on April 10, a day after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces. They said most of the victims were army deserters and were dressed in pieces of uniforms; other victims wore the striped pajamas that prisoners wear. Some had long beards, they said, and had bags tied over their heads. All of the victims’ hands were tied behind their backs, and all had been shot in the head, the witnesses said. The bodies had not yet decomposed, they said.
Volunteers from a volunteer group in Baghdad dug in the shallow ditch on Saturday and Sunday, and retrieved 10 bodies. It was unclear where the rest of the bodies seen by villagers had gone, but some had apparently been claimed by relatives of the victims. Forensic archeologist Ian Hanson of Inforce said there were probably more bodies buried beneath untouched earth.
The experts said the digging at the site by Iraqi volunteers would make more difficult the search for evidence that could eventually be used in a criminal investigation.
Most of the remains retrieved over the weekend were skeletal. Hanson said decomposition in this area is very rapid because of the intense heat. “If a body is left out in the open in this heat, it can decompose to the skeleton in a week,†he said. “A body buried near the surface could be skeletized in a week, especially if there is any disease or injury.â€
The U.S. and British investigators have been traveling widely in Iraq to find mass graves, usually digging up only one or two bodies before doing so. Since the end of the war they have found more than 80 such sites, some containing thousands of corpses dug up by Iraqi volunteers.
Most of the bodies they have examined have been of people executed earlier in Hussein’s reign, particularly in 1988, 1991 and 1998. The experts are compiling a list of sites so the graves can be fully exhumed with the help of international forensics experts.
MORE GRAVES TO BE FOUND?
But Hanson, a veteran forensic investigator of Bosnian war crimes, said he expected to find more graves containing bodies from recent executions. Hussein, he said, had “been doing this for 20 years. I don’t think he suddenly stops. You might find it increases because he suddenly feels threatened. I’d imagine that’s very likely.â€
Burley said most of the sites probably would not be further exhumed until a year from now because it will take that long to make plans for what needs to be done.
“The waiting is a big deal†to families with relatives who have been missing for years, he said. “But people are cooperating. Getting the body is a comfort, but what happens later is they canâ€t get the evidence to find out who did this to their family.â€
Killings preceded fall of Baghdad, Hussein
SALMAN PAK, Iraq, June 9 — U.S. and British forensic experts who examined an intelligence compound outside Baghdad today said the site was a mass grave that likely contained the remains of political prisoners and army deserters killed in the days or weeks before President Saddam Hussein fell from power.
“IT CERTAINLY is a grave site,†said U.S. Army Col. Ed Burley, referring to the sandy trough inside a former Iraqi security forces compound near the village of Salman Pak where bodies were exhumed this weekend. “This is the first grave we’ve found of such recent vintage.â€
Burley, coordinator of the forensics team looking for mass graves in Iraq, said witnesses from Salman Pak told him that there had been more than 100 bodies in the grave, but it appeared that many of the bodies had been removed, in some cases by relatives. The forensic experts exhumed one body last week, buried about a foot deep in the earth, and determined that the victim had been recently executed. The experts said this discovery supported the witness accounts.
The experts’ assessment also seemed to support reports that Hussein’s government executed people just before losing its grip on power two months ago. Soldiers captured by U.S. forces told them that internal security forces had taken Iraqi army deserters and suspected political opponents of Hussein to unknown destinations.
Burley and a team of experts from the British-based Inforce Foundation, a nonprofit organization that investigates genocides and war crimes, visited the site today. An expert in geology, Roland Wessling, who is also an archeologist with Inforce, examined the dirt and surveyed the site, which is 20 miles south of Baghdad. Wessling said earth at the site appeared to have been disturbed recently.
Burley said he suspected that the victims were either “prisoners killed immediately before the war,†or deserting soldiers killed just before the fall of Baghdad.
MOSTLY DESERTERS AND PRISONERS
Two witnesses from the village said in interviews Sunday that they had found 115 bodies stacked in a ditch inside the compound on April 10, a day after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces. They said most of the victims were army deserters and were dressed in pieces of uniforms; other victims wore the striped pajamas that prisoners wear. Some had long beards, they said, and had bags tied over their heads. All of the victims’ hands were tied behind their backs, and all had been shot in the head, the witnesses said. The bodies had not yet decomposed, they said.
Volunteers from a volunteer group in Baghdad dug in the shallow ditch on Saturday and Sunday, and retrieved 10 bodies. It was unclear where the rest of the bodies seen by villagers had gone, but some had apparently been claimed by relatives of the victims. Forensic archeologist Ian Hanson of Inforce said there were probably more bodies buried beneath untouched earth.
The experts said the digging at the site by Iraqi volunteers would make more difficult the search for evidence that could eventually be used in a criminal investigation.
Most of the remains retrieved over the weekend were skeletal. Hanson said decomposition in this area is very rapid because of the intense heat. “If a body is left out in the open in this heat, it can decompose to the skeleton in a week,†he said. “A body buried near the surface could be skeletized in a week, especially if there is any disease or injury.â€
The U.S. and British investigators have been traveling widely in Iraq to find mass graves, usually digging up only one or two bodies before doing so. Since the end of the war they have found more than 80 such sites, some containing thousands of corpses dug up by Iraqi volunteers.
Most of the bodies they have examined have been of people executed earlier in Hussein’s reign, particularly in 1988, 1991 and 1998. The experts are compiling a list of sites so the graves can be fully exhumed with the help of international forensics experts.
MORE GRAVES TO BE FOUND?
But Hanson, a veteran forensic investigator of Bosnian war crimes, said he expected to find more graves containing bodies from recent executions. Hussein, he said, had “been doing this for 20 years. I don’t think he suddenly stops. You might find it increases because he suddenly feels threatened. I’d imagine that’s very likely.â€
Burley said most of the sites probably would not be further exhumed until a year from now because it will take that long to make plans for what needs to be done.
“The waiting is a big deal†to families with relatives who have been missing for years, he said. “But people are cooperating. Getting the body is a comfort, but what happens later is they canâ€t get the evidence to find out who did this to their family.â€
