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September 15th,
2006 - Iraqi Envoy Accuses US Of Stonewalling In Cousin’s Death |
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Iraqi Envoy
Accuses US of Stonewalling in Cousin’s Death By Associated Press September 15, 2006 Southfield, Michigan - Iraq’s
ambassador to the U.S. on Friday accused U.S. officials of stonewalling him
in his efforts to find out what happened to his cousin, who was killed by the
military in Iraq. The military announced in
July that it had completed an investigation of the incident and determined
that a U.S. Marine acted in self-defense during the June 25, 2005, fatal
shooting near Haditha. Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie
said he learned of the investigation’s result in March or April from Gen.
George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. He said he was promised a copy
of the military’s report on the case, but has not received it. Sumaidaie called the delay
“unsatisfactory,” and described the military’s conclusion that the shooting
was in self defense as “incredible.” “It sounds to me very much
like bureaucratic stonewalling,” he told The Associated Press in an interview
in suburban Detroit, where he was meeting with members of the area’s large
Iraqi community. A request for comment was
left with the Defense Department press office. The cousin, a 21-year-old
engineering student named Mohammed Sumaidaie, was killed during a search of
his family’s home near Haditha, a restive city in the predominantly Sunni
Muslim western Iraqi province of Anbar. The province is the heartland of the
Sunni Arab-led insurgency and Haditha was the scene of the alleged massacre
of dozens of Iraqis by U.S. forces last November. Sumaidaie, who at the time
was Iraq’s ambassador to the U.N., has said his cousin was killed after he
escorted Marines to a bedroom to show them where a rifle that had no live
ammunition was kept. In July, Maj. Douglas
Powell, a military spokesman, said the Marine “acted properly in self-defense
in response to unexpectedly encountering a man pointing an AK-47 at him.” External link: http://tinyurl.com/5yfqj3 |