Detained Iraq Sunni leader son caught planting bombs
 |
Adnan al-Dulaimi |
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The son of leading Iraqi Sunni Arab politician Adnan al-Dulaimi has been charged with attempted murder after he was caught planting a bomb in a house belonging to a Shiite family, police said Thursday.
Police said that Muthanna Dulaimi was caught red-handed as he tried to set the explosive in a predominantly Sunni Arab district where Shiite families had lived before they were displaced by the sectarian violence of recent years.
"The defendant was arrested as he was placing a bomb inside the house that belonged to a displaced family in the neighbourhood," security spokesman Qassim Atta told AFP.
Security forces arrested Muthanna after a Baghdad court issued three arrest warrants charging him with multiple killings and forcing people out of their homes, a statement from Baghdad's central security command said.
"(The warrants) accused him of murder and displacing people in al-Adel neighbourhood," it said.
Muthanna is the second son of Dulaimi to be arrested by Iraqi forces and his detention has already heightened tensions between Sunni leaders and Baghdad's Shiite-led administration.
"We strongly denounce this heinous act. We are shocked by this barbaric action that was carried out by executive bodies against national figures," said a statement from the National Concord Front, the main Sunni party.
"We demand that Dulaimi's son be released immediately," it said.
Dulaimi's other son, Makki, was arrested in November last year after troops found a car full of explosives near Dulaimi's house in the Adel neighbourhood of west Baghdad.
Dulaimi himself was put under house arrest at the time but later released.
He told AFP on Wednesday that he was being targeted by the authorities.
"It is an attempt to target me as I am always demanding the release of prisoners and talking against sectarianism," Dulaimi insisted.
"Muthanna is not related to any political party. He is just a trader of automobile spare parts."