WORLD> Middle East
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WORLD> Middle East
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Briton in Iraqi custody after killing colleagues
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-08-10 13:25
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities arrested a British contractor Sunday over the shooting deaths of two co-workers 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 Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. "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 British Embassy said two Britons were in Iraqi custody in connection with Sunday's shooting. But Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf maintained that only one suspect was being held, identifying him as Daniel Fitzsimons. An official familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, 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 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 an ex-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 January 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. The move was provoked by outrage over a deadly September 2007 shooting in Baghdad involving another North Carolina security firm, Blackwater Worldwide, now known as Xe. The agreement also set a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from the entire country by the end of 2011. |
