BAGHDAD, March 2 -- Gunmen on Tuesday assassinated an investigating judge working for the Iraqi special tribunal established to try former president Saddam Hussein and other former officials, U.S. and Iraqi authorities said.
The assassination came a day after five detainees associated with Hussein's government, including a half brother of the ousted leader, were referred to the tribunal for prosecution.
Demonstrators in Hilla condemn Monday's suicide bombing outside a medical clinic in the city. The attack targeted recruits for the nascent armed forces.
(Khalid Mohammed -- AP)
|
_____Live Discussion_____
•
Transcript: The Post's Jackie Spinner, returning to the United States, discussed her nine months of reporting in Iraq.
_____From Baghdad_____
•
Video: Gunmen killed a judge and attorney working for Iraq's special tribunal.
|
| |
|
The officials, who did not know the slain judge's identity, said that he was not the magistrate before whom Hussein appeared last year.
The judge, identified by the Associated Press as Barwez Mohammed Mahmoud, and a relative were killed early Tuesday outside their home in the Azamiyah district of northern Baghdad, a predominantly Sunni Muslim neighborhood that has been the site of many insurgent attacks. The al-Arabiya satellite television network reported that the two victims lived in the same house.
It is the first time that a member of the special tribunal is known to have been killed.
A non-Iraqi legal expert said at a briefing Monday in Baghdad that members of the tribunal had experienced "some incidents" involving their security, but declined to provide details. Only one of the tribunal judges, Raed Jouhi, has been publicly identified.
In central Baghdad Wednesday morning, a car bomb exploded outside an Iraqi army base, killing six soldiers and wounding 25, police told the Associated Press.
The blast, which occurred at a base at the former Muthanna airport, could be heard across the city, and a plume of black smoke billowed into the air after the attack.
An Interior Ministry security official, Ayad Hadi Maliki, said 25 people were wounded in the attack, 15 of them civilians.
A second large explosion about an hour later exploded on a bridge in the southern part of the capital.
Meanwhile, the organization of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born insurgent leader, asserted responsibility Tuesday for a huge car bombing the day before in the central city of Hilla, as the death toll from the suicide blast rose to 125.
Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, asserted in an Internet posting that it had targeted recruits for Iraq's nascent armed forces when it carried out the bombing Monday, according to two Arab television stations.
Iraqis enlisting in the security forces were among the dead, but many of those killed were civilians shopping at a nearby market. As grieving families sought their remains, emotions were running high in the city about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
The Associated Press reported that about 2,000 residents held an impromptu demonstration at the site of the bombing, outside a medical clinic, during which they condemned terrorism and criticized the government for not halting it.
