Posted on 04/21/2003 1:21:00 AM PDT by kattracks
BAGHDAD - Among the Iraqis who have recovered bodies from shallow mass graves at the country's largest prison is the family of a retired general they say disappeared after meeting with UN weapons inspectors."We came to this place because someone told us that he may be buried somewhere here," said Abu Haldoon, the brother-in-law of retired Air Force Gen. Engineer Ali Hussein Habib.
Habib retired in 1991 after heading a team of military officers in developing Iraq's chemical weapons program, Haldoon said.
In early February, UN experts searching for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction interviewed the general for three days, Haldoon said.
"He had a meeting with [chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix. He's dead because of that meeting. Hans Blix must be told that," Haldoon said.
Calls to Blix's Vienna and New York offices were not returned, and the claim could not be independently verified. But media reports place Blix in Iraq on Feb. 8 and 9.
Found decapitated
Habib's family took their shovels to the earth and began to dig. By the time they uncovered a fourth body barely 6 inches below the surface, they reached soil soaked with blood.
There they found the general's body, but not his head. His wife paced around the gravesite and patted her cheeks, trying to stop her streaming tears.
The family was not alone. Flies hovered over the three mass gravesites at Abu Ghraib prison as grieving Iraqis, aided by local diggers, frantically searched for missing family members.
At least 650 prisoners were known to have been sentenced to death at the 3-square-mile compound 45 miles from Baghdad. And in the 48 hours before U.S. Marines arrived in the capital, Baath Party leaders were said to have ordered the execution of an unknown number of inmates.
Hurried executions
In the guards' rush to carry out the executions and flee, they buried the bodies at varying depths, wrapping some in shrouds and leaving others in just the blue and white striped pajamas the prisoners were forced to wear.
Yakob Krokur, a 42-year-old Iraqi of Armenian descent, went to a gravesite near the prison's western wall where he had been told his 35-year-old cousin Carlo Krokur, a hair stylist, had been buried.
"I searched for him in the hospitals. I searched for him in the police stations," Yakob Krokur said. "One friend of mine was in the security department. I gave him my cousin's name. ... We were told 50 people were hanged, my cousin being one of them. They killed him two days before the war began."
Local youths who helped dig for Carlo Krokur's body were forced to stop, overwhelmed by the stench.
His cousin left the prison without finding the body.
Originally published on April 21, 2003
In early February, UN experts searching for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction interviewed the general for three days, Haldoon said.
"He had a meeting with [chief UN weapons inspector] Hans Blix. He's dead because of that meeting. Hans Blix must be told that," Haldoon said.
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