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Date Posted: 01:35:40 04/29/03 Tue
Author: Drummond
Subject: Story out of Iraq

In a message dated 4/28/03 2:46:21 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
CPTnet.editor.guest.445947@MennoLink.org writes:

<<
CPTnet
April 28, 2003
IRAQ: CPTers intervene on behalf of Iraqi arrested at U.S. Checkpoint.


[Note: Photos of this incident may be found on CPT's Iraq page:
www.prairienet.org/cpt/iraq.php]


At 11:20 am, Thursday, April 24, CPT members Scott Kerr and Lisa Martens
walked to the U.S. military checkpoint near the Al Fanar Hotel on Abu Nawas
Street. There, two soldiers were pressing the face of an Iraqi man against
the sidewalk and hand-cuffing him. Kerr and Martens took photographs and
asked why the man was being arrested. The soldiers did not answer the
question. The man being arrested said that he was hired by Japanese
journalists the day before and was looking for the journalists.

After five minutes of being pinned to the ground, the Iraqi man was escorted
to a nearby tank and forced to sit down. A heated discussion began between
the arrested man and the U.S. soldier.

Soon after, there was also a physical altercation between the arresting
soldier and an Iraqi security guard working at the checkpoint with the U.S.
Soldiers. The U.S. soldier physically engaged the Iraqi security agent with head
butting, light shoving and finally ripping off the security guard's name tag
and throwing it on the ground. This conflict began as the security agent attempted to speak with the prisoner. Martens intervened and deescalated the situation by quietly speaking to the U.S. soldier. Eventually the Iraqi security agent and the man under arrest were able to speak to each other.

Five minutes later Martens, Kerr, the arresting American soldier, the Iraqi
under arrest and another U.S. soldier, Calderon, walked to the Palestine
hotel.

During this walk Kerr and Martens were unable to ascertain why the man was
under arrest. In a conversation between the man under arrest and the
arresting soldier the soldier said that "You would not go away and were
causing trouble; you would not go away when I asked you to. . . .when you
start causing trouble other people start causing trouble, so I had to take
you away." The man under arrest said to the soldier, "You called me a (expletive deleted) Do you know anything about my Mother? Saddam was a (expletive deleted) and you are treating me the same."


Later the team was told by Lieutenant Morseth that the Iraqi man was
"threatening to kill the soldier and physically harassing the soldier at the
checkpoint." Neither of these stories could be corroborated by anyone, including other soldiers near the incident.

At the Palestine Hotel, the man was led to a room where he was told to sit
down. Martens and Kerr stayed at the man's side, Martens eventually
sitting next to the man in a back room. Cynthia Banas from Voices in the
Wilderness also joined the group.

Within minutes of arriving at the Palestine Hotel (the site being used for
detentions) the Iraqi man was released with out further explanation under
the authority of Lt. Morseth. There were about thirty minutes between the time
that Kerr and Martens arrived on the scene and the time that the man was
released.


Martens accompanied the Iraqi man away, while Kerr and Banas continued to
speak with Lt. Morseth. The cause for the arrest and release of this man
remained undetermined.

Back on the street, talking with the man who had been under arrest, he told
Martens that his wife was nine months pregnant and that he needed work. He
said that he had arranged work with some Japanese reporters and was supposed
to meet them at the Palestine Hotel, but he did not have a card proving that
he worked with the press.
>>

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