Tales of torture emerge as fear of al-Sadr lessens

NAJAF, Iraq — The last time Hadi saw his brother, his hands were tied behind his back and blood was running down his swollen face.

They were both prisoners at a religious court operated by the office of rebel Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and both accused of helping foreign troops. Hadi, who asked that only his first name be used because he fears retribution, was released after six days. Five months later, his brother is still missing.

“Enough,” Hadi heard his brother, Abdul Salam, plead with his captors. “By Hussein, don’t hit me anymore,” he said, invoking the name of a revered Shi’ite saint.

The jailers didn’t stop, Hadi said.

A symbol of the power Sheik al-Sadr’s followers once wielded here, the court stopped functioning when the cleric’s militia returned control of Najaf’s Old City to Iraqi police late last month. Many residents — too scared to talk about the court in the past — are now sharing horror stories of its work.

“By God, they are monsters,” said Muslim al-Senobli, who was taken to the court on unfounded accusations of helping police. “They destroyed me,” he said, punching the air with his fists to mimic his jailers, adding he was released only after his tribe threatened to cause problems for Sheik al-Sadr’s followers.

To aides of the baleful, black-turbaned sheik, the court and others they conducted elsewhere were an attempt to apply their interpretation of Islamic justice to a lawless society.

Many outsiders heard about the Najaf court for the first time when television stations beamed images of at least 13 bodies that police said were found after many of Sheik al-Sadr’s militiamen left last month.

Eager to discredit Sheik al-Sadr and his group, police said the bodies were victims of the court’s summary justice. The cleric’s aides insisted the corpses were people who died during the fighting in Najaf.

Najaf’s police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghalib al-Jazaari, said Wednesday that only two of the dead were identified before burial and they were policemen, one of whom had his eyes gouged out.

The other bodies included a woman and a child, and many showed signs of torture, he said.

A U.S. military intelligence report obtained by The Washington Times late last month said followers of the angry young sheik had killed Iraqis who opposed his insurrection and mutilated their bodies.

A U.S. military officer told The Times after Sheik al Sadr’s fighters had left Najaf that the command had acquired photos of 15 to 20 mutilated bodies that appear to be Iraqis lying in a courtyard.

Yesterday, about 1,000 protesters marched through Najaf’s old quarter to demand that the Iraqi government investigate the court and punish those in charge of it. They also demanded that Sheik al-Sadr leave Najaf.

Chanting, “Muqtada, the trash, is a leader of looters,” the demonstrators walked past buildings battered by three weeks of fighting and insisted that Sheik al-Sadr’s office be shut down. Iraqi soldiers kept the protesters from marching to Sheik al-Sadr’s office.

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