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Iraq court orders Trump arrest over drone strike on Iran general

By AFP
07 January 2021   |   12:59 pm
A Baghdad court has issued a warrant for the arrest of US President Donald Trump as part of its investigation into the killing of a top Iraqi paramilitary commander.

(FILES) In this file photo combination of photos shows a handout picture provided by the office of the Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on June 4, 2019, of Iranian Major General in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qasem Soleimani (L) in Tehran; and a file photo taken on December 31, 2019, of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis (R), a commander in the Popular Mobilization Forces, attending a funeral procession of Hashed al-Shaabi fighters in Baghdad. – One year after US forces assassinated Iran’s top commander in Baghdad, tensions are boiling between Iraq’s Washington-backed premier and pro-Tehran forces that accuse him of complicity in the drone strike. US President Donald Trump sent shock waves through the region with the January 3, 2020, targeted killing of Iran’s revered General Qasem Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant, which infuriated the Islamic republic and its allies. (Photo by Handout and Ahmad AL-RUBAYE / IRANIAN SUPREME LEADER’S WEBSITE / AFP)

A Baghdad court has issued a warrant for the arrest of US President Donald Trump as part of its investigation into the killing of a top Iraqi paramilitary commander.

Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy head of Iraq’s largely pro-Iran Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network, died in the same US drone strike that killed storied Iranian general Qasem Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3 last year.

The strike on their motorcade was ordered by Trump, who later crowed that it had taken out “two (men) for the price of one”.

The UN special rapporteur for an extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, has described the twin killings as “arbitrary” and “illegal”.

Iran already issued a warrant for Trump’s arrest in June and asked Interpol to relay it as a so-called red notice to other police forces around the world, a request that has so far gone unmet.

The court for east Baghdad issued the warrant for Trump’s arrest under Article 406 of the penal code, which provides for the death penalty in all cases of premeditated murder, the judiciary said.

The court said the preliminary inquiry had been completed but “investigations are continuing in order to unmask the other culprits in this crime, be they Iraqis or foreigners.”

In the run-up to Sunday’s anniversary of the twin killings, pro-Iran factions stepped up their rhetoric against Washington and Iraqi officials deemed to have colluded with it.

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