Iraqi Justice

"They murdered the prisoners. There were two rooms full of men. In one they put the prisoners in a line and shot them in the head. They sprayed the other cell with bullets and then they threw in hand grenades."
"They told him [his nephew] that I was being 'loose with my tongue, in speaking out against the presence of militias in Baquba. They tortured him, all just to get to me."
"People are not naturally inclined to support Islamic State. We are moderate Sunnis. But the police and Shia militias kidnapping, arresting, and killing is making a lot of people wish Islamic State would enter and protect them."
Abdullah Hamid Al-Hayali, mayor of Baquba, Iraq

_{The mayor of Baquba, Abdullah Hamid al-Hayali (Sam Tarling/Telegraph)}

On the night of June 16, Sunni insurgents had attacked the Baquba police station. Militia from the Iran-backed League of the Righteous, a powerful Shia fighting group, repelled them. Mr. Hayali spoke of his 23-year-old nephew Ali Ahmed, who had been taken into custody for interrogation. Of the other prisoners present in the police station at the time most were there for minor traffic offences, for failing to pay traffic fines.

The League of the Righteous, having repelled the Sunni Islamists turned their attention to the prisoners in the cells who just happened to be Sunni. The town is ethnically mixed, Sunnis in a slight majority. The Shiite militia, led by the police commander at the Al-Wahdew police station, went on a killing spree, slaughtering the 46 prisoners. Mr. Hayali, backed by the town's governor, has appealed to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to dismiss the police commander, with no response.

Government officials instead, blame the deaths of the prisoners on the Sunni jihadists, claiming an insurgent mortar destroyed the police station. Mr. Hayali has proof otherwise. Photographs of the dead along with hospital death certificates speak of security forces from Iraq's Shia government massacring the prisoners to ensure that as Sunnis, they would not join the insurgency should they arrive in Baquba.


_{Iraqi security forces hold up an Isis flag they captured during an operation to regain control of Dallah Abbas north of Baqouba (AP)}

Mr. Hayali, as mayor of the town is one of its most powerful Sunnis. The presence of the Shiite militias that Nouri Al-Maliki saw fit to bring in to augment his own incapable Iraqi military threatens the sectarian equilibrium of the town. Their presence most certainly threatens Mr. Hayali's survival; he has due cause to live now in fear of his life for speaking out.

North of Baghdad, Baquba, located on the edge of territory in control of the insurgents is in a tense situation. Its streets are close to void of civilians and with heavily armed Shia militiamen patrolling in pick-up trucks, emanating an aura of suppressed violence. One survivor of the massacre had been taken to hospital where Mr. Hayali visited him in his gathering of evidence.

Two hours after Mr. Hayali's visit with badly wounded Ahmed Zaidan he was taken from his bed, he was killed, his body dumped behind the hospital.