Snipers executed

I'd like to say a couple things about the criminal justice system at work in Iraq.
As the surge of operations targets extremists and expands into former terrorist safe havens,
Iraqi law enforcement and the Central Criminal Court of Iraq are investigating
and prosecuting accused terrorists and criminals.

One recent case concerned three men who were detained in October of last year. On 22 July, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court found Jassim Hussein Nabir (sp) and Mohammed Sabay Latas
(sp) guilty of violating Article 4 -- correction -- Article 4, subparagraph one
of the anti-terrorism law in Iraq. And then on 25 July, Mustafa Hussein (sp)
was also found guilty of violating the same provision. This is Article 4,
subparagraph one of the anti-terrorism law. And all three received capital
punishment.

The three were self-proclaimed members of Jaish al-Islami and were
recruited to be snipers. This sniper cell was captured by the 6th Iraqi Army
Division on 19 October when they were seen driving in a suspicious manner.
After pulling them over, observant Iraqi soldiers saw a pistol and empty shell
casings lying in the back of their van.

The sniper cell then tried to resist arrest, and two of the three were shot and
injured in the fight. Following the arrest, Iraqi and coalition forces conducted a thorough
search of the van and found a well-conceived sniper rifle -- well-concealed
sniper rifle, I should say, and a .22-caliber weapon with a scope and silence.
Also found were a video camera with a sniper video on tape, two fully loaded
magazines, one box of .22- caliber ammo, two hand grenades, and 108,000 Iraqi
dinar.

There was a hidden compartment in the van seat that enabled the snipers
to conceal the weapons. The search also revealed that the van had been modified
to be used as a sniper platform. Beside the hidden compartment there was also a
porthole in the rear of the van that would allow a sniper to shoot in a
concealed position.

Furthermore, there was a mount for the video camera found inside the
van.

Notably, two of the defendants gave full confessions. They admitted
that they were -- all three of the men were part of the sniper cell for Jaish
al-Islami. Nabir Hussein Jassim al-Shammari (sp) and Mohammed Sabay Latas al-
Samarra (sp) were snipers, and Mustafa Hussein al-Wan (sp) was the driver. A
Jaish al-Islami operative recruited them for the sniper operations; also in
their confession was that the recruiter bought a van for them and modified it
for sniper operations, paid the sniper cell for each successful operation if he
was given a video of the operation.

They shot at 11 coalition soldiers and believed that they had killed at
least two. They also admitted to shooting a Jaish al-Mahdi leader who they
thought was involved in the sectarian violence.

Nabir (sp) was shown a terrorist video of 28 sniper shootings and
identified eight of those clips as missions that he had personally conducted.
The video in the van contained a clip of one operation conducted near the time
of their capture. Their operations were conducted primarily in Al-Amiriya and
in -- the neighborhood of Baghdad, Al-Amiriya in Baghdad. Their operations
occurred over a period of about two months.

http://www.defenselink.mil/home/blog/docs/0802martTranscript.pdf