28 October 2010
The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal issued arrest warrants for 258 Kurds who were members of Ba’ath party of the former President Saddam Hussein during the Anfal Campaign, where more than 150 thousand Kurds were killed.
The collaborators known among Kurds as Jash (donkey-foal) or Mustashar (advisor) are wanted for their alleged involvement in the infamous Anfal campaign in the 1980s in which tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians were massacred by Hussein’s regime.
According to the report by Rudaw.net the warrants, issued on Oct. 10, 2010, have been sent to the relevant authorities in the Kurdistan Region, including the office of the president of the Region and the Kurdish interior ministry.
In 2007, the Tribunal recognized the Anfal operations as a genocidal campaign aimed at exterminating large numbers of civilian Kurds and destroying their livelihoods.
Kurds estimate around 4,000 villages were destroyed by the former Iraqi Army during the Anfal campaign delivering heavy blows to the traditional, agricultural lifestyle of the Kurds.
Mohammed Abdul-Sahib, the spokesman for the SICT told Rudaw that the second round of the trials of the Anfal case will begin when the wanted collaborators are handed over to the court.
In 2007, the Tribunal had ordered investigations with 423 Kurdish and Arab individuals suspected of involvement in the Anfal operations.
Top on the list of the wanted names is Wafiq al-Samarrayi, a former military intelligence chief under Saddam who briefly served as a security advisor to current President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, after the fall of Saddam’s regime in 2003. Al-Samarrayi left Iraq a few years ago and is believed to be currently residing in the United Kingdom.
ANF NEWS DESK /
ANF NEWS AGENCY
