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Bodies of 50 hostages found in Iraq
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-20 21:56
The bodies of 50 people, believed to be those of hostages held in a town near
Baghdad earlier this week, have been found in the Tigris river south of Baghdad,
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday.
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| Relatives mourn over the body Raed Ali Mohammed, 22, an Iraqi Army
soldier at al-Ramadi Hospital in Ramadi, Iraq Tuesday, April 19, 2005.
[AP] | "More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris and we have the
full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these
crimes," Talabani told reporters.
"We will give you details in the coming days ... terrorists committed crimes
there. It is not true that there were no hostages. There were, but they were
killed and they threw the bodies into the Tigris," he said.
Shi'ite officials said last Saturday that around 50 people had been taken
hostage by Sunni militants in the town of Madaen, south of Baghdad, and were
threatened with death.
Iraqi security forces raided the town earlier this week, but said they had
found next to no evidence that anyone had been taken hostage or that there were
any gunmen in the town.
Later, Shi'ite officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the
Tigris south of Madaen, but residents and police in the area who spoke to
Reuters said they hadn't seen any bodies.
Talabani made his announcement at a news conference shortly after a meeting
with Iraq's new prime minister and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of Shi'ite
political party SCIRI, one of the sources for the information on the Madaen
hostages.
Talabani said details of the number of people who had been killed and their
names would be announced in the coming days.
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