Hezbollah prisoner held by Iraq faces minor charge
Iraq is slapping the hand of a terrorist leader who killed American soldiers? This is messed up on so many levels.
BAGHDAD – A Lebanese Hezbollah commander allegedly responsible for killing four U.S. soldiers in Iraq will be prosecuted for a lesser charge of illegal entry with a forged passport, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
Ali Musa Daqduq was the last American prisoner in Iraq and was handed over to Iraqi authorities on Friday.
On Saturday, two Iraqi officials said Daqduq will be prosecuted for illegal entry with a forged passport — the only Iraqi charge against him. The charge generally carries a sentence of just over five years in prison. But the officials say an investigative judge will consider U.S. allegations against him. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Daqduq has been linked to a brazen raid in which four American soldiers were abducted and killed in the Iraqi holy city of Karbala in 2007.
U.S. officials have long feared that the Iraqis would release Daqduq once he had been transferred from American control and U.S. troops left the country. But his case was complicated by issues of international diplomacy and the American political debate over how best to prosecute suspected terrorists.
Under former President George W. Bush, prosecutors had planned to charge Daqduq in a U.S. criminal court. But those plans were scrapped after President Barack Obama took office and lawmakers began restricting his ability to bring terrorist suspects into the United States for trial.