Over the weekend, up to five (reports vary) American private security contractors, along with an Iraqi, were detained by Iraqi authorities in Baghdad’s Green Zone in relation to an investigation into the murder last month of James Kitterman, another American contractor found bound and stabbed to death in Baghdad.
Details are pretty sketchy, but it looks like the Americans are from a company called Corporate Training Unlimited, and that U.S. officials have visited the men in detention and report that they’re in good shape. If the men remain in custody and are charged with having something to do with Kitterman’s murder—a crime for which they haven’t been charged—it will mark the first time foreign citizens will face Iraqi justice since contractors were placed under Iraqi jurisdiction on January 1. (“Off duty” American service members also fall under Iraqi jurisdiction, but I don’t envision too many soldiers going outside the wire on their down time.)
The Washington Post has the most detailed information on the contractor story, reporting that
Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said the men were being held at a police station in the Green Zone as part of a joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation. He said FBI agents had provided a tip to Iraqi forces, then accompanied them on a raid at a house where they had uncovered weapons and drugs.
In the March issue of DTI, I looked at what the SOFA might mean for foreign contractors in Iraq, and Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), an organization of private contractors told me that “there’s trepidation” among contractors about the law, “but I haven’t heard of anybody pulling out.”
Even before the SOFA came into effect, “we had a number of companies who were working under Iraqi law already,” he continued, “and all Iraqi employees are under Iraqi law, so there’s some precedent for this. I think there’s some feeling out process, and certainly there’s lot of caution flags up right now.”
With the Iraqis now showing that they mean business, and with the FBI offering a helping hand, those flags should be flying at full mast at this point, one would think.
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 06/09/2009 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
Posted by: David M | June 09, 2009 at 10:43 AM