Ali Mussa Daqduq worked with Iranian agents to train Shiite militias who targeted American soldiers in Iraq, according to the US military. He was captured in 2007.
The US planned to try Daqduq in an American court, but that stalled as the White House and Congress clashed over how to prosecute suspected terrorists.
Iraqi Justice Ministry spokesman Haidar Al-Saadi said Wednesday that Daqduq will be transferred to Iraqi custody at week’s end. US officials said the handover probably wouldn’t happen this week.
Daqduq is one of about 10 remaining US prisoners who, under a 2008 agreement between Washington and Baghdad, must be transferred by the end of 2011. US officials acknowledged that his transfer is required.
Iraq’s shoddy record on detainee security and its recent efforts to improve diplomatic ties with Iran have made US authorities skittish about turning over Daqduq.
Just a week after the US turned its prison at Camp Cropper over to Iraqi control in July 2010, four Al-Qaeda-linked detainees escaped. An investigation showed that the detainees had inside help.
The same was true again in May in an aborted escape from one of Baghdad’s most heavily fortified prisons that left 17 inmates and guards dead, including a counterterrorism general.
Under President George W. Bush, US officials developed a plan to interrogate Daqduq for intelligence and then turn him over to the Justice Department for trial. That plan has been scuttled, however, by Bush’s own Republican allies in Congress. They objected to Daqduq and other terrorist suspects being brought to the United States for trial.
Republicans want Daqduq and other suspected terrorists to be prosecuted at the Guantanamo Bay military base, which the Obama administration has tried to close. In a letter in May, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee told Attorney General Eric Holder that they were “deeply concerned” that Daqduq might be prosecuted in the United States.
Lawyers who have reviewed the case concluded that while prosecuting him at Guantanamo Bay is possible, incarcerating him there is not. That’s because Congress authorized military action against Al-Qaeda and those who carried out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Supreme Court has relied on that authorization to allow the military to hold Al-Qaeda suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Hezbollah is a Shiite group and is considered by the US to be a terrorist organization. Al-Qaida is a Sunni organization. The two are not affiliated.
