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   From: oO@oO.com   
      
   Iraqi minister calls for UN role in rape-murder probe   
      
   Iraq's justice minister on Tuesday called for the UN to intervene in the   
   probe of an alleged rape and murder of a woman and three members of her   
   family by US soldiers in March. On the ground, gunmen pulled the deputy   
   electricity minister from his car in a busy Baghdad street Tuesday, briefly   
   kidnapping him and 19 bodyguards even as the premier vowed to stamp out   
   terrorism.   
      
   Raad al-Harith was released with seven of his bodyguards 12 hours after he   
   was abducted by men wearing camouflage uniforms who stopped his convoy in   
   eastern Baghdad, Interior Ministry sources said. He declined to discuss who   
   had apprehended him or where he had been prior to his release.   
      
   The March 12 attack on the family in Mahmoudiyya, south of Baghdad, was   
   among the worst in a series of cases of US troops accused of killing and   
   abusing Iraqi civilians.   
      
   "If this act actually happened, it constitutes an ugly and unethical crime,   
   monstrous and inhuman," said Justice Minister Hashem Abdel-Rahman al-Shebli.   
      
   "The Iraqi judiciary should be informed about this investigation which   
   should be ... [supervised by] international and human rights groups. Those   
   involved should face justice."   
      
   "The ugliness of this crime demands a swift intervention of the UN Security   
   Council to stop these violations of human rights and to condemn them so they   
   do not happen again," he added.   
      
   At present coalition troops cannot be tried in Iraq for any violation of   
   law.   
      
   Former Private First Class Steven D. Green appeared in federal court in   
   Charlotte, North Carolina, Monday to face murder and rape charges. At least   
   four other US soldiers still in Iraq are under investigation, and the   
   military has stressed it is taking the allegations seriously.   
      
   Two women legislators, Safiyya al-Suhail and Ayda al-Sharif, called for   
   Premier Nuri al-Maliki to be summoned to Parliament to give assurances the   
   US troops would be punished.   
      
   Mahmoudiyya Mayor Muayad Fadhil said Iraqi authorities have started their   
   own investigation and he had asked the hospital where the victims were taken   
   for more details.   
      
   Fadhil said the town's hospital informed him Qassem Hamza Rashid, 50, his   
   wife Fakhriyya Taha, 42, and their two daughters Abir, 16, and Hadil, 7,   
   were "shot in the head, chest and neck."   
      
   Documents also allege the incident was meticulously planned and the rape   
   victim's movements had been studied over the period of a week beforehand.   
      
   Meanwhile, Maliki, on a tour of Gulf states to get political and economic   
   support for his new government, said he had won promises from Arab leaders   
   to crack down harder on sources of funding for the insurgency.   
      
   "We agreed with our brothers to confront terrorism and dry up its sources by   
   closing fake companies that fund terrorism in Iraq," Maliki said in Abu   
   Dhabi, before heading to Kuwait.   
      
   Earlier, he told members of the Iraqi community in the UAE that his   
   administration's principal goals were to "implement the national   
   reconciliation plan, eliminate corruption and all those implicated in   
   terrorism."   
      
   Maliki said when he returned to Baghdad he would meet a number of armed   
   groups in Iraq who had contacted him on peace efforts as long as they   
   clearly identified who would be representing them in the talks.   
      
   In the United States, President George W. Bush, trying to tap into   
   Independence Day patriotism to revive domestic support for an unpopular war,   
   vowed US troops would not leave Iraq until their mission was complete. But   
   British Premier Tony Blair said in London a British troop withdrawal was   
   expected in the next 18 months.   
      
   "I'm not going to allow the sacrifice of 2,527 [US] troops who've died in   
   Iraq to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done," Bush said in Fort   
   Bragg, North Carolina. - Agencies   
      
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