Iraq’s deputy justice minister kidnapped in Baghdad

Gunmen have abducted a senior Iraqi justice ministry official yesterday in the latest of a series of high profile kidnapping in Baghdad.

“Unknown gunmen, this afternoon, abducted Fares Abdul-Karim al-Saadi, the administrative acting deputy minister of the justice ministry and the director general of the ministry’s administrative and financial department,” security sources said.

A senior security officer in the Iraqi interior ministry told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed: “Armed militants wearing federal police uniforms ambushed Al-Saadi’s convoy and kidnapped him after assaulting his bodyguards.”

The bodyguards were later released.

Meanwhile, a justice ministry official said: “Armed militias kidnapped Al-Saadi a day after he opened an investigation into human rights violations against armed militias and parties in power, including former Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki,” noting that “the security forces’ reaction and reluctance to look for him explain everything,” eluding that the security forces are collaboration with the militants.

The kidnapping incident is the second of its kind in less than a week.

As many as 18 employees of a Turkish construction company, all identified as Turkish citizens, were kidnapped last week in Baghdad’s Sadr City, when masked gunmen wearing military uniforms stormed their work place.

The Iraqi military raided the Baghdad headquarters of the Shia militia Kata’ib Hezbollah after intelligence suggested they may have been behind the kidnapping.