Our Government's Attack on Our Citizens Part 3: Mohammed Munaf

Innocent American who the bad luck to be kidnapped (the released) and the worse luck to be an American Muslim is tortured then scheduled to be turned over by his own government to Iraqi authorities to be executed.

Lawyers Seek to Free U.S. Citizen Held in Iraq

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 — An American citizen who was tried in an Iraqi court on charges that he had assisted in the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists last year has been sentenced to death, along with five Iraqi co-defendants, a spokesman for the United States Embassy in Baghdad said Saturday.

The spokesman, Lou Fintor, did not identify the American by name, but according to officials in Baghdad and his own legal team, he is Mohammed Munaf, 53.

Lawyers for Mr. Munaf filed papers in federal court in Washington on Friday to try to prevent his transfer to the Iraqi government, arguing that his death sentence undermined one of the United States government’s principal arguments for transferring him, namely that he would be in no danger of physical abuse in Iraqi custody.

Mr. Munaf, an Iraqi native who became a citizen of the United States in 2000, traveled to Iraq in March 2005 to act as translator and guide for three Romanian journalists. The journalists were kidnapped by Iraqis and held for 55 days, as was Mr. Munaf.

The Romanians were freed by American forces on May 23, 2005, but Mr. Munaf was held on suspicion of having been an accomplice in the kidnapping.

According to the government, Mr. Munaf confessed to concocting the plot with friends and relatives and only acted as if he were a victim.

But Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said Mr. Munaf’s confession was made under torture.

Mr. Munaf is being held by the American military at Camp Cropper near the Baghdad International Airport.

Because Mr. Munaf is a United States citizen, Mr. Hafetz and his other lawyers have asked Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the United States District Court here to order the military to maintain custody and not give him to the Iraqi criminal court.

In papers filed with the court, Mr. Hafetz said that United States military officials had intervened with the Iraqi judge and insisted that Mr. Munaf be convicted and sentenced to death. Earlier, the Justice Department said that Judge Lamberth should not intervene in the case for several reasons. The department said that Mr. Munaf’s claims that he could face torture and physical harm if transferred to Iraqi custody were only speculative and based on news reports of abuse in the government’s prison system.

The Justice Department also argued that Mr. Munaf was not actually in United States custody but was being held by a multinational force that was helping the Iraqi government in detention operations.

A judge in another case rejected an argument by the department that an American was being held by a multinational force.

In a similar case involving another American citizen held by the multinational force, a different federal judge rejected the department’s argument that the prisoner was not being held by the United States military as a legalistic fiction.

In that case, involving a native of Jordan, the judge issued a restraining order to stop the United States military from transferring the man to Iraqi custody. That case is on appeal, and Mr. Munaf’s lawyers have asked Judge Lamberth to await a ruling from the appeals court.

Michael Luo contributed reporting from Baghdad.

Original article posted here.