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NEWSFLASH:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
LOCATION:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1155990.htm
Broadcast: 16/07/2004
Iraqi PM executed six insurgents: witnesses
Reporter: Maxine McKew
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MAXINE MCKEW: Let's go straight to the allegations that
Iyad Allawi executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police
station at the end of June.
The explosive claims in tomorrow's Sydney
Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were
handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the
Iraqi Prime Minister.
Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him
that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with
insurgents.
Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are
also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American
security men in civilian dress.
Well, the journalist reporting the story
is Paul McGeough, awarded a Walkley Award for his coverage of the Iraq war last
year.
He's also a former editor of the Herald and is now the
paper's chief correspondent.
He's joined me on the line from a location
in the Middle East.
MAXINE McKEW: Paul McGeough, thanks for joining
us.
Paul, as you've also made clear in your article, Prime Minister
Allawi has flatly denied this story.
Why then is the Herald so
confident about publishing it?
PAUL McGEOUGH, 'SYDNEY MORNING HERALD' AND
'AGE' FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Well it's a very contentious issue.
What you
have is two very solid eyewitness accounts of what happened at a police security
complex in a south-west Baghdad suburb.
They are very
detailed.
They were done separately.
Each witness is not aware
that the other spoke.
They were contacted through personal channels
rather than through the many political, religious or military organisations
working in Baghdad that might be trying to spin a tale.
And they've laid
it out very carefully and very clearly as to what they saw.
MAXINE McKEW:
You haven't identified these witnesses but why have they felt free to talk about
such an extraordinary story?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, they were approached
through personal connections and as a result of that, they accepted
assurances.
They were guaranteed anonymity, they were told that no
identifying material would be published on them and they told what they
saw.
MAXINE McKEW: And just take us through the events as they were
accounted to you?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Well, I'll take you through what the two
bits of pieces of what the two witnesses said to give you the full chronology as
I understand it.
There was a surprise visit at about 10:30 in the morning
to the police centre.
The PM is said to have talked to a large group of
policemen, then to have toured the complex.
They came to a courtyard
where six, sorry seven prisoners were lined up against a wall.
They were
handcuffed, they were blindfolded, they were described to me as an Iraqi
colloquialism for the fundamentalist foreign fighters who have come to
Baghdad.
They have that classic look that you see with many of the Osama
bin Laden associates of the scraggly beard and the very short hair and they were
a sort of ... took place in front of them as they were up against this wall was
an exchange between the Interior Minister and Dr Allawi, the Interior Minister
saying that he felt like killing them on the spot.
It's worth noting at
this point in the story that on June 19, there was an attack on the Interior
Minister's home in the Sunni triangle in which four of his bodyguards
(inaudible) --
Dr Allawi is alleged to have said (inaudible) --
.
MAXINE McKEW: Paul, you just dropped out there.
You were just
beginning to describe in fact how this incident, this alleged incident, took
place.
What was the action taken?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Um, after a tour
of the complex, the sort of official party, if you like, arrived in a courtyard
where the prisoners were lined up against a wall.
An exchange is said to
have taken place between Dr Allawi and the Interior Minister.
The
Interior Minister lives to the north of Baghdad, and on June 19, four of his
bodyguards were killed in an attack on his home.
He expressed the wish
that he would like to kill all these men on the spot.
The PM is said to
have responded that they deserved worse than death, that each was responsible
for killing more than 50 Iraqis each, and at that point, he is said to have
pulled a gun and proceeded to aim at and shoot all seven.
Six of them
died, the seventh, according to one witness, was wounded in the chest, according
to the other witness, was wounded in the neck and presumed to be
dead.
MAXINE McKEW: And the victims, they were, what, foreign or local
insurgents?
PAUL McGEOUGH: They were - one of the witnesses described
them as Wahabis, the Iraqi colloquialism for foreign fighters who have come into
the country or local Iraqis who have taken on their Islamic jihad, if you
like.
The reference is very much to their appearance - very short hair,
very scraggly beard and four of them were described as Wahabis, the other three
were described to me as normal Iraqis.
MAXINE McKEW: Now you're time
line, Paul, on this is this happened just before the formal handover, is that
right, to Dr Allawi's interim Government?
PAUL McGEOUGH: As explained by
the witnesses, neither of them could put a precise date on the
incident.
But they each gave me a description in terms of the days that
had lapsed from it and by tracking back on the two different descriptions that
they gave me from the date of the interview I had with them, which was some days
apart, I was able to establish that it happened on or around the weekend of June
19/20.
That would make it three weeks after Dr Allawi had been named as
Prime Minister - one week before the handover.
MAXINE MCKEW: And your
informants, in what kind of tone did they recount this extraordinary
tale?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Very matter-of-factly, which is often the way you
get incredible or remarkable events explained to you in this part of the
world.
There's been so much violence, so much pain and a particular
attitude to death, if you like, that both of them recounted it quite
matter-of-factly.
MAXINE McKEW: And of course, I have to ask you again -
I'm sure that the Baghdad rumour mill would be thick with stories about Dr
Allawi.
Why are you so confident that you can't put this story into that
same category?
PAUL McGEOUGH: Because it came from two eye
witnesses.
You're right about the Baghdad rumour mill, it's
ferocious.
And versions of this story are on it and it was as a result of
hearing this story as a rumour that I proceeded to check it to investigate it,
to see if it had a factual base.
I used, as I said earlier, personal
channels to make contact with the two witnesses to establish that they were in a
position to know in terms of somebody trying to come at me with a story, that
wasn't the case.
They did not come to me.
They weren't offered or
volunteered to me.
There was an element of chance involved in meeting one
of them, which would have made it impossible for him to have been a set-up for
me, and listening to their stories, their stories sounded credible.
I had
a colleague sitting in by accident on one of the interviews.
He was
impressed by the credibility and something that's very important with a story
like this in this part of the world, particularly where you're interviewing
through interpreters I had a very sound, to me on the ground, a very valuable
set of Iraqi eyes and ears listening and also believing the
account.
MAXINE McKEW: Your sources of course will be sought out by other
news agencies after tonight.
Will they stand up to scrutiny?
PAUL
McGEOUGH: Well I don't know whether others will find them or not.
I won't
be making them available to anyone.
I've given undertakes that I would
protect their identities absolutely and I have to stand by that.
MAXINE
McKEW: All right, for that.
Paul McGeough, thanks very much indeed,
fascinating story.
PAUL McGEOUGH: OK. |
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