Associated Press (AP) – In 30 seconds, Ali Jasb, a young human rights lawyer, disappeared at night in southern Iraq.
One night, a year ago, a woman left an unlit street in the city of Amara, her face hidden in a black abaya, and greeted Jasb. Almost immediately, a black van stopped, two men forced him in and left. The woman was put in a van she was waiting for and left.
This latest sighting of Jasb, 21, captured via a surveillance camera at 6:22 p. m. October 8, 2019, was not heard from him or his captors.
Since then, Jasb’s father has been seeking justice, which has faced a major obstacle: the Iraqi government’s growing powerlessness over Iran-backed Shiite militias.
Jasb was kidnapped for a week in historic protests that erupt across Iraq and saw tens of thousands of young people demonstrate against corruption and the ruling class. Like many others, hopes of replacing the movement encouraged Jasb to denounce the militias in his hometown.
Today, Jasb is one of 53 demonstrators missing since the motion began on 1 October, according to the semioficial Iraqi Commission on Human Rights.
The protests were largely suppressed through a mixture of coronavirus and violent repression through security forces and militias that, according to the commission, killed more than 500 people.
As a component of the crackdown, the militias are believed to have waged a crusade of terror, kidnapping dozens of activists and murdering more than 60.
In Jasb’s case, court investigations noted through the Associated Press show a link between his abduction and the maximum defense force in his hometown, Amara.
His father, Jasb Aboud, is determined to bring his commander to justice.
“I’m afraid, ” he told the AP. But I lost the most valuable thing to me, so I have nothing else to lose. “
“Nice place to stay”
Jasb illustrated that of the hopeful activists who fueled the protest movement.
He initiated the law to help the other inhabitants of Amara, a small town surrounded by swamps on the Tigris River, the capital of Missan province.
He married at an early age and soon had a daughter, now 2 years old. It depicted women seeking divorce from an abusive husband. He was angry about state failures, and noted that his circle of relatives was still digging wells for water depended on beloved turbines to get electricity.
When the protests broke out, Jasb participated and formed a legal committee for the detainees.
And he criticized the strength of the militias.
In The Province of Missan, this meant Ansar Allah al-Awfia, one of the most excessive pro-Iranian militias that was incorporated as a component of the state-sponsored umbrella organization, the People’s Mobilization Forces, created to combat the organization of the Islamic State in 2014.
Over the years, he came to vital government offices and many companies in Missan. His faithful won two of the province’s 10 parliamentary seats. Known for his illicit transactions, he earned significant revenue from the iran border industry.
There was no reaction to repeated emails from AP to PMF requesting comments on this story, and calls and messages to al-Awfia got no reaction.
When Jasb began receiving threats, his father begged him not to criticize the online militia.
“I can’t keep my mouth shut, ” replied Jasb.
His companions, his most recent case, might have sealed off his fate. He was helping divorce a militiaman’s wife, said his friend Akeel Auki, who runs Missan’s bar syndicate.
Any lawyer who prosecutes a case that opposes a member of the defense force will be “surrounded by threats,” Auki said. “I’ve had many. “
On October 7, the son of Jasb, a son, was born. The next day, she won a call: A woman seeking legal assistance asked to meet that night on a street a few minutes’ drive away.
The surveillance camera later what happened next.
LEGACY CRISIS
The motion of protest won, expelling Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi. His successor, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, presented himself as a champion of the protesters.
He promised to hold early elections, investigate violence against militants and armed groups.
But he soon faced the limits of his own administration. Abdul-Mahdi had allowed the militias to grow to such an extent that “we are almost out of state now,” said a senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity of the sensitivity of the subject. .
Frequent rocket attacks targeted al-Kadhimi force headquarters in Baghdad, in tension with the United States, he told me.
The militias have blocked attempts to accumulate customs revenue, which would have reduced the budget that evades cross-border trade, and defense force corruption has destroyed a programme to spice up agricultural exports, authorities said.
A commission of inquiry produced an official death toll in the protests, but did not call the killers.
He had already inherited an economic crisis and an exaggerated fitness formula: “If we call the killers, we will drown,” said a senior adviser to al-Kadhimi on an anonymity condition to speak freely.
Activists to attack.
The death by gunshot in July of a high-level commentator and critic from Iran, Hisham al-Hashimi, shocked Baghdad and two prominent activists in Basra were killed.
“If the government cannot do justice to the liking of al-Hashimi, then who is Ali Jasb to them?”said Hasab Wahab of the human rights organization al-Amel.
THE CRIMINAL CASE
On 14 July, Jasb’s father, Aboud, met with a new lawyer in Baghdad. The investigation through Missan’s ruling on her son’s abduction had stagnated for nine long months.
They believe they knew why: the evidence had a link with al-Awfia militia commander Haidar al-Gharawi.
“The defendant is a defense force that has strength in Missan, so it can influence witnesses or even the law,” attorney Wala al-Ameri said.
Aboud and al-Ameri considered it an ambitious bet: to take the case to a more independent Baghdad court and seek an arrest warrant opposed to al-Gharawi.
The two men sat down and reviewed the case.
According to surveillance footage, Jasb’s kidnappers were driving a Chevrolet Tahoe and Toyota pickup truck, which had dark polarized glass, prohibited by Iraqi law, and had no license plates. Little done to locate the vehicles.
The key to the case was the mobile phone number Jasb had called.
Investigators discovered that it belonged to an illegally purchased SIM card that was not registered with the authorities. There is a thriving black market for un-registered SIM cards, which cannot be assigned to a user.
At a recent mall in Baghdad, a broker said SIM cards had been smuggled from the northern city of Irbil. He introduced one for 75,000 Iraqi dinars, about $63, and then added, “But then . . . you’ve never met me.
Police discovered other numbers that had called the unknown SIM card, including a guy named Saddam Hamed.
Hamed told investigators that he had no idea what the unknown number was, but said his wife, Fatima Saeed, used his phone to call a relative, who is married to al-Gharawi, according to his testimony.
The opinion of the sentence summoned Saeed for wondering, but she never showed up. She and Hamed had fled.
Here, Aboud asked his lawyer, “Do we have enough evidence?”
Silence, the eyes of the two men rested in half-drinking cups. Tried.
OTHER CATCHES
The testimonies of others abducted through alleged militias provide clues as to what Jasb might have suffered.
A young activist from the southern city of Karbala, who asked to be known by his first name, Kadhim, told the AP that in December he and 4 friends were arrested by armed men near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the protests. carried blindfolded to an unknown place.
For four days they were beaten and interrogated, the kidnappers accused them of arson against the Iranian consulate in Karbala and of taking cash from the Americans, according to Kadhim’s account, corroborated by two activists too fearful to speak officially.
“I’ll locate what you’re hiding under your skin, ” said the interrogator. Kadhim said his legs had been electrocuted. His body felt like he was torn.
Online threats have led many activists to flee to Turkey, according to two rights observers and two activists lately in Istanbul.
The guy who went to Turkey in February had won messages from an unknown number.
One of them said, “We know you live. “
ABANDONED FATHER
In September, al-Kadhimi visited Missan and gave a greeting to Jasb’s father.
During the 15-minute assembly held on the compound of a Chinese oil giant, Aboud documents the court and appointed the defense force he thought had taken his son.
Al-Kadhimi in shock, Aboud said, put his hand on his chest and promised he’d give it to me.
The Prime Minister would possibly be the last hope of the grieving father after reaching a snlock.
Baghdad ruled that there is insufficient evidence for an arrest warrant opposed to al-Gharawi. He rejected Hamed’s testimony, saying that only the testimony of someone who saw the kidnapping could move the case forward.
“Now it’s an opposite case to the unknown, ” said Aboud.
There are witnesses. No one dares to talk.
One man told the AP that he had noticed everything in a nearby store and spoke under condition of anonymity out of fear.
He said he saw it emerge and the men pushed Jasb into the vehicle. Then he saw the police look for Jasb’s car. AP showed that the store had a view of the site.
But would he testify?
“It would be my funeral the day. “
___
Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Abdulrahman Zeyad contributed.