SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
15 alleged drug traffickers escape Iraqi custody: ministry
Baghdad, Aug 3 (AFP) Aug 03, 2019
Iraq's interior ministry announced several top policemen had been fired after 15 suspected members of a drug trafficking network escaped on Saturday from a police station in the capital.

"The defendants first insulted the police, then beat them and managed to escape" from the police station in eastern Baghdad, near the Shiite bastion of Sadr city, a security services official told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Baghdad's police chief and the heads of the Al-Russafa police department in the capital's east and the station where the suspects pulled off their escape were fired, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Prison security is a critical issue in Iraq, where escapes are not uncommon, whether by violence or bribery.

Iraq is the 12th most corrupt country in the world, according to Transparency International, and experts have pointed to high levels of corruption in its prisons.

During the years of insurrection and sectarian violence that followed the United States' 2003 invasion, hundreds of jihadists -- the majority from Al-Qaeda at the time -- were able to escape from prison.

Iraq is currently seeking to try thousands of local and foreign jihadists, while keeping them in overcrowded prisons.

Many prisons have been rendered unusable by repeated conflicts.

The sale and use of drugs has been booming for years in Iraq.

Authorities regularly announce the seizure of narcotics and the arrest of traffickers, particularly along the border with Iran.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
NASA picks Firefly Aerospace for ambitious 2029 lunar rover and instrument delivery
Team led by MDA Space to define future of Canadian lunar vehicle program
Lunar soil machine developed to build bricks using sunlight

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Designing compact drones to safely navigate air ducts
Map Africa project to deliver continentwide geospatial data for 54 nations
The complex relationship between fusion fuel and lithium walls

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
Boeing X37B Spaceplane Prepares for Eighth Orbital Test Mission
Israel military intercepts Huthi missile fired from Yemen; Gaza civil defence says Israel strikes kill 30
BlackSky secures next stage of Navy contract for optical satellite link upgrades

24/7 News Coverage
Cosmic dust particles reveal snapshot of Earth's ancient air
Spire to Provide ESA with Satellite Weather Data for European Research
Gaza seen from above: debris and darkness



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.