US Marines help mass murderer to escape in Iraq, by mistake: "new source of tension between his troops and local Iraqis: the locals' anger that Mohammed Jawad Anayfas escaped U.S. custody. The locals say Anayfas was responsible for mass killings of thousands of their neighbors who opposed Saddam in the early 1990s.
The subject came up when Wolfowitz visited a mass grave estimated by U.S. officials to have held the remains of as many as 15,000 Iraqis. The site is about a mile south of the town of Mahawil, on land that local Iraqis say was owned by Anayfas.
Anayfas was picked up by U.S. military forces on an unrelated charge. About a month ago, while he was being transferred from Baghdad to Um Qasr in southern Iraq, he managed to convince his holders that he was an innocent farmer. Not only was he allowed to leave, he was even given transportation, Conway said. "
- posted by geoff @ #