GRIEVING IRAQIS DEMAND JUSTICE AFTER KARRADA BOMB ACCUSED IS ARRESTED
▶ Iraq has caught the main suspect in the 2016 blast that killed more than 300 people
Iraqis in the Baghdad district of Karrada expressed their relief and happiness following the arrest of the suspected orchestrator behind the deadly bombing of its shopping centre in July 2016.
The blast killed at least 300 people and wounded hundreds of others.
The suicide lorry bombing was the deadliest attack carried out by a single bomber in the Iraqi capital after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
“Despite the deep sorrow that I have been living with, I was happy when I heard the news,” Muhsin Skheir Gzar, 70, who lost his son in the attack, told The National.
Mr Gzar’s son, Hameed, 25, was inside his clothing shop in Karrada market when the lorry exploded.
“It was a criminal and heinous act,” Mr Gzar said, sitting in a small cafe near the site of the bombing.
He wore a black kandura, a sign of mourning.
“The incident has made me look older than my real age by at least 25 years,” he said.
“Pain and sorrow have not abandoned us and everything is bleak around us since then. I have not forgotten my son in a single day all these years.”
Grief led to the death of his mother two years after the incident and Mr Gzar has suffered from hypertension and diabetes.
“Our house was beautiful, full of laughter and happiness, but it has been demolished,” the father of four said, breaking into tears.
The Iraqi authorities announced the arrest of a man identified as Ghazwan Al Zobai after a complex operation that was carried out with the co-operation of an unidentified neighbouring country.
He had been tracked by the authorities for months, but the security forces did not reveal in which country he was detained, saying only that “it was foreign”.
Images of Al Zobai after his capture showed a blindfolded captive, flanked by Iraqi special forces on board a C-130 Hercules, suggesting he was being flown into Iraq from a neighbouring country, possibly Syria.
Al Zobai told Al Hadath TV network that he was an Al Qaeda militant when he was jailed by US forces at Iraq’s Camp Cropper prison until 2008.
He escaped from Abu Ghraib prison in 2013 during a mass jailbreak and went on to join ISIS.
In a video, Al Zobai was confronted by a woman who lost her son in the bombing in Karrada.
“Why did you kill them? What did you gain from killing them? Answer me, what did you gain?” she said.
“You didn’t think about the families of victims that you killed? The men and women did not do anything wrong in life,” she told Al Zobai, as he stood with his head down.
For years, those who lost their loved ones in the bombing have demanded that the perpetrators be held responsible and tried by an international court.
“We need to know who financed and planned this attack and others from behind the borders,” said Ghanim Oraibi, 60, whose son and son-in-law were killed in the attack.
“Iraq is unable to face the countries who supported these gangs and that’s why we want an international court to deal with it,” said Mr Oraibi, a former footballer who represented the Iraqi national team during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
“We want to know the truth. Who killed our sons? We want to see these criminals hanged.”
The arrest has revived disturbing memories of the attack for those who survived and own shops in the busy area.
“We are living the tragedy again,” said a shop owner who narrowly escaped the bombing.
He remembered how he and others picked up charred bodies after the explosion.
“All were burnt out like chicken in the oven,” he said.
“I took part in the rescue operations but collapsed on the second day and couldn’t continue.
“I was afraid to sleep alone for three months after the attack.
“I’m not happy with his arrest. He’ll be put in a prison where he can find good accommodation.
“He was living his life normally all these years while his victims are buried and their families have lived in grief.”
Pointing to the place where the lorry bomb exploded, he said: “[Al Zobai] has to be executed here.
“They just need to hang him here and we’ll take care of him and I don’t want to hear those who speak about human rights.”
We want to know the truth. Who killed our sons? We want to see these criminals hanged
GHANIM ORAIBI Relative