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Iraq lawyer predicts Hezbollah prisoner to go free
A Hezbollah commander accused of targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq may be released from prison within weeks, his lawyer predicted Wednesday, claiming that flimsy American evidence has kept his client behind bars for nearly five years.
Daqduq's attorney, Abdul-Mahdi al-Mitairi, said he expects Iraqi courts to agree that there is not enough evidence to keep him in prison. "Legally, the investigation judge should have already released him for a lack of evidence, but he was under pressure from the Americans," al-Mitairi said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we are waiting for the case to be transferred to a criminal court in the coming few weeks, and I think he will be released after the first trial session," al-Mitairi said. Daqduq is a Lebanese commander for Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group linked to numerous deadly attacks. U.S. officials say he trained Shiite militias in Iraq and helped plot the 2007 killing of four American soldiers in the holy city of Karbala, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of Baghdad. Daqduq was captured later that year and held in U.S. custody in Iraq as officials tried to decide where to charge him. When the American military left Iraq late last December, U.S. officials were forced to hand over Daqduq to Iraqi authorities -- despite fears in Washington that he would be quietly freed by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. Posted by: tipper 2012-04-19 |
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