Iraqi authorities arrested a British contractor on Sunday over the shooting deaths of two coworkers in Baghdad’s protected Green Zone. The suspected gunman could be the first Westerner to face an Iraqi trial on murder charges since a security pact lifted the immunity that had been enjoyed by foreign contractors for most of the war.
The gunman shot his colleagues — one British and one Australian — during a quarrel, then he wounded an Iraqi while trying to flee their compound inside the vast area that is sealed off from the rest of the capital, Iraqi officials said.
“It started as a squabble,” Iraqi military spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi said. “The suspect is facing a premeditated murder charge. The matter is now in the hands of Iraqi justice.”
He said the suspect was being held at an Iraqi police station in the Green Zone.
The Green Zone houses the US and British embassies as well as the Iraqi government headquarters. The US military turned over security of the area to Iraqi forces when the security pact took effect on Jan. 1, but many foreign organizations maintain separate guarded compounds within the zone.
The UK embassy said two Britons were in Iraqi custody in connection with Sunday’s shooting.
But Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that only one suspect was being held, identifying him as Daniel Fitzsimons.
An official familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Iraqis detained a second Briton for questioning but he had been released.
Fitzsimons was an experienced contractor who had worked for security firms in Iraq since 2004 and had only recently been rehired by ArmorGroup after a previous stint, the official said.
Patrick Toyne-Sewell, a spokesman for ArmorGroup Iraq, confirmed that two employees of the group identified as Paul McGuigan of Britain and Darren Hoare of Australia were killed early on Sunday in a firearms incident.
“We are working closely with the Iraqi authorities to investigate the circumstances of their deaths,” he said, adding that their relatives had been informed.
McGuigan, 37, was a former Royal Marine who had worked for the company in Iraq for six years, according to Toyne-Sewell, but more details were not immediately available about Hoare.
The US embassy referred questions to British, Australian and Iraqi officials.
The shooting occurred in the compound operated by Research Triangle Institute, the headquarters of two US-funded nonprofit groups — the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute.
A US-Iraqi security pact, which took effect on Jan. 1 and replaced the UN mandate for foreign forces, lifted the immunity that had been enjoyed by foreign contractors in Iraq for much of the six-year war.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS