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US forces has paid out $32m to Iraqis and
Kurds for 'wrongful deaths'
6.5.2007
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So far
US forces in Iraq have paid out $32m for 'wrongful
deaths'. Karzan Sherabayani went back
to Kirkuk to ask why his uncle had to die
May 6, 2007
One cold London morning in January, I received a
phone call from one of my brothers. Uncle Kakarash
was dead, killed by American soldiers at a
checkpoint. He was my mother's brother, 75, and like
most Kurds had suffered greatly under Saddam and
welcomed the Americans as liberators.
Civilians in Iraq face everyday hazards beyond the
snipers and the insurgents' bombs - hundreds have
been run over by tanks or hit by stray bullets or
shot at checkpoints. There are no records kept of
the numbers of civilians killed during the war or by
coalition troops.
Figures released last month after a request from the
American Civil Liberties Union revealed that the US
army has paid out $32m to Iraqi civilians in
compensation for 'wrongful deaths' and injuries.
That does not include condolence payments which can
be made at the discretion of commanders on the
scene.
I had been back to Iraq several times since the war,
reporting for More4 News. But this time I had a
personal mission to return to Kurdistan, the
homeland I fled 27 years ago.
My cousin Sabah took me to the checkpoint where his
father died, not far from his home on the outskirts
of Kirkuk. Kakarash had gone out first thing in the
morning, before breakfast, to get petrol before the
queues built up. As luck would have it, I found
several eyewitnesses who had seen the whole
incident.
One of them was an Iraqi soldier who had been on
duty at the checkpoint. 'When the Americans are here
we have to stop all the cars, but your uncle was
distracted and kept driving,' he told me. 'The
Americans shot a bullet into the ground to warn him
- he didn't stop but tried to turn away and the
Americans started shooting at him, thinking he might
be a suicide car bomb.'
A group of local men, clearly distressed by what
they had seen, told me the soldiers kept on firing
after my uncle had turned around and tried to get
away. 'They obviously shot to kill him,' one man
told me. 'If not, they could have stopped after the
first shot, they could have given him a chance to
see what was he going to do next, but they just shot
him dead.'
I went to see the car in a local garage. I counted
86 bullet holes. The rear windscreen had been shot
out - the front windscreen was intact. The doctor
who had certified my uncle's death, Dr Ahmed Mansur,
told me there were three entry wounds in his body -
two in his back and one in the palm of his hand as
it gripped the steering wheel. All three came from
the back. 'We call these high- velocity missile
injuries', he said. 'Their entry is small but the
exit makes a big hole and inside it tears apart all
the tissues ... even if you try to save the victims
they still die.'
Kakarash Ali Khalid was a family man. He had
recently retired after working all his life as a
lorry driver, a job which took him all over Iraq.
Like most Kurds, he suffered under Saddam, with many
relatives - myself included - imprisoned and
tortured. He had eight children and was still
helping to provide for the family by doing odd
driving jobs. Sabah remembers him telling the young
ones to be careful at checkpoints - although he was
not hostile to the US presence.
'He was happy they took Saddam away from power, and
was saying we will finally have a good life,' Sabah
told me. 'Before, I too was very happy about seeing
the Americans here, but not any more. Anyone
submitted to this injustice will dislike them. Have
they come here to save us from Saddam or to kill
us?'
In 2003, the US military set up a system for
compensating victims of what are termed 'wrongful
deaths'. This involved creating 31 Foreign Claims
offices around the country, with power to offer
compensation to families of anyone killed in error
by US forces. The office in Kirkuk is supposed to be
open one morning a week, on a Monday, but the Monday
I went there, no one turned up.
At the main US base at Kirkuk's military airport, I
was given the number of the local public affairs
spokesman, a Major Chang, who agreed to meet me next
morning. When he didn't show, or answer his mobile,
I called him from a different number, and got
through. He said his commanders had 'concerns' about
my interviewing him, but insisted soldiers had
followed the rules of engagement. 'When they find
themselves in a situation and they recognise there
is a credible threat there, then they will act
accordingly ... if the vehicle was approaching at a
checkpoint and all other vehicles have stopped, and
that one vehicle keeps coming at them - what would
you do in that case?'
But my uncle did not keep coming at them - he had
turned his car round. And despite the major's
defence of the soldiers' actions, the Foreign Claims
Commission did classify my uncle as a 'wrongful
death'. In return for signing a pledge not to take
any action against the US military, Sabah
was given $2,500.
In my week in Kirkuk, I met families of 10 other
victims of 'wrongful deaths'. Like my cousin Sabah,
they have lost faith in the Americans as liberators.
If the soldiers are not held to account for their
actions, what is to stop it happening again and
again?
· Karzan Sherabayani's report will be shown on
More4 News on Tuesday, 8pm.
guardian co.uk
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