The Mass Murder No One Heard.
---Excerpt---
Not that simple
The connection seemed obvious and Iraq's newly-elected transitional President, Jalal Talabani, appeared to confirm it when he said emphatically that the bodies were those of hostages who had been murdered.
But closer investigation made it clear that it was not quite as simple as it seemed.
Senior police officials at the regional headquarters for the area gave a detailed breakdown of when the bodies had been found.
They said they had started to appear in the al-Suwayra stretch of the Tigris nearly two months earlier, on 27 February. On the first three days, 27 bodies were retrieved, while during and after the supposed hostage crisis only six corpses were pulled from the river.
But in the 26 days between 26 March and 20 April, there was a steady flow of cadavers. A total of 33 were retrieved during that period, an average of just over one a day.
The police statistics said that of 60 bodies 56 were men, two women and two children. Fifty-three had died of gunshot wounds, five had had their throats cut and two were beheaded.
Only seven of the corpses were identified by relatives. The remainder were photographed, numbered and buried in unmarked graves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4470803.stm
Not that simple
The connection seemed obvious and Iraq's newly-elected transitional President, Jalal Talabani, appeared to confirm it when he said emphatically that the bodies were those of hostages who had been murdered.
But closer investigation made it clear that it was not quite as simple as it seemed.
Senior police officials at the regional headquarters for the area gave a detailed breakdown of when the bodies had been found.
They said they had started to appear in the al-Suwayra stretch of the Tigris nearly two months earlier, on 27 February. On the first three days, 27 bodies were retrieved, while during and after the supposed hostage crisis only six corpses were pulled from the river.
But in the 26 days between 26 March and 20 April, there was a steady flow of cadavers. A total of 33 were retrieved during that period, an average of just over one a day.
The police statistics said that of 60 bodies 56 were men, two women and two children. Fifty-three had died of gunshot wounds, five had had their throats cut and two were beheaded.
Only seven of the corpses were identified by relatives. The remainder were photographed, numbered and buried in unmarked graves.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4470803.stm
posted by Christy at 11:16 PM
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