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Mosul Court Is Americans' Exhibit A
A Koran and case files sit on desks in front of the Iraqi judges' bench in Major Crimes Court 15. The dock in center of the room is where defendants stand.
(Photos By Bill Murphy Jr. -- The Washington Post)
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Only one other court in the country, the Baghdad-based Central Criminal Court of Iraq, effectively handles insurgent cases, U.S. officials say. That court hears the cases of detainees captured by the U.S. military, while all the defendants in the Mosul court were captured by Iraqi forces. According to U.S. military statistics, both courts have roughly similar conviction rates, hovering somewhere between half and two-thirds.
A Washington Post reporter attended a recent meeting between the current three judges from Baghdad and the Americans who advise them, on condition that the judges' names not be printed. The meeting took place in a well-appointed room next to the building housing the courtroom. The judges wore business suits, and their well-polished shoes provided evidence that they are rarely able to leave the compound for security reasons.
Speaking through a U.S. Army interpreter, the judges told the Americans at the outset that they had not been able to find more than 150 of the defendants whose cases they were supposed to hear. Officials at Badoosh Prison said the suspects were not there.
Earlier that day, the chief judge continued, the court had released two defendants who had been charged with murder. "No evidence against them," he said, "not even a witness. No confess[ions], no evidence at all."
The two defendants had been held for more than two years awaiting trial, he added.
In another case that morning, the judges said, they sentenced a man to life in prison after four witnesses said he had been "launching mortars."
The meeting lasted about an hour. The judges wanted to know about travel arrangements for getting them safely back to Baghdad. They also rejected the Americans' suggestion that they send some of the court's investigators to the nearby city of Tall Afar to review some cases, rather than bringing the cases and defendants to the court in Mosul. The judges said they feared for their investigators' lives if they went to Tall Afar.
At one point, the room broke up in laughter when one of the judges joked that another one had volunteered for the Mosul court to get away from his two wives in Baghdad. And as the meeting wrapped up, the chief judge had a final question for the Americans.
"I just want to know why every week you are here asking these questions," he said.
