BAGHDAD, 17 July 2005 — A former general in Saddam Hussein’s army and his son were found shot dead in Baghdad after being detained by police commandos, an Interior Ministry official told AFP yesterday, raising new question marks over the discipline of the elite force. Akram Ahmed Rasul Al-Bayati, a major general in the old regime’s disbanded military, was arrested at his east Baghdad home last Sunday along with two of his sons - Ali, a policeman, and Omar, the official said.

Omar was later released and one of his uncle’s offered to pay $7,000 for the release of the other two. The money was handed over Friday afternoon, said the official, asking not to be identified. Later in the evening, the uncle went to the Talaba district where his brother and nephew were to be released.

The general and his son, along with a third unidentified man, arrived in a civilian car, were taken out onto the street and shot dead, the official said. There was no immediate word of any official investigation into the incident, one of a growing number that raise suspicions of serious misconduct by the interior ministry force.

Made up of former Special Forces from Saddam’s military, the 12,000-strong commandos have been deployed in Sunni Arab insurgent bastions like Ramadi and Mosul and are lionized in a nightly show on state television called “Terrorists in the Grip of Justice” that shows confessions extracted from detainees.

But a commando unit deployed to the central city of Samarra was pulled out in April after what US officers said were repeated incidents of looting, culminating in the torching of a home. And a spate of executions of civilians in recent weeks has sparked new accusations against the force.

Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy minister for intelligence at the Interior Ministry, told AFP earlier this week it was not known who was responsible for the killings. “The minister (Bayan Solagh) has issued orders that nobody be arrested without a warrant,” he said.

“Every day we find innocent people killed and their bodies dumped in the streets. We don’t know who’s responsible. The minister has ordered that a special committee be set up to look into this very explosive issue. “There are people who dress up in police or commandos’ uniforms to carry out, even at night, horrible attacks which are then blamed on police,” Kamal said.