Iraqi police said yesterday they have arrested the man responsible for the August 2003 killing of Shiite leader Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Al-Hakim, as he prepared to attack another Shiite leader. The suspect, a Kurd from the northern city of Mosul known only as Hashim, was arrested 10 days ago as he walked in the central shrine city of Najaf, said the city's police chief, Maj. Gen. Ghaleb Al-Jazairi. Two others who were with Hashim managed to escape, he said. "He was planning other attacks against the people of Najaf and Grand Ayatollah (Ali) Al-Sistani," said Jazairi referring to the spiritual leader of the country's majority Shiite community. He said the plot against the 73-year-old Sistani, who rarely ventures out of his Najaf compound, involved booby trapped briefcases containing cash from zakah (alms) given by the faithful and brought to his office. Hashim also planned to carry out suicide attacks near the mausoleum of Imam Ali, the city's most important shrine, said Jazairi. Four others, including an Afghan national, took part in the Aug. 29, 2003, car bombing outside the shrine in which, besides Hakim, over 80 died after the senior cleric delivered his weekly sermon, said Jazairi.
Hakim was killed months after returning to Iraq in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003 after 23 years in exile in Iran. He was head of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq , the leading religious Shiite party in Iraq. The party is led now by the late ayatollah's brother, Abdul Aziz, and is a major component of the United Iraqi Alliance which swept January's legislative elections.
Meanwhile, the family of a Jordanian man linked to a massive suicide bombing in Iraq last month denied in Amman yesterday that his son was responsible for the attack as authorities investigated a newspaper report implicating him. "My son had nothing to do with the Hilla bombing. He died in Mosul and was buried there," Mansur Al-Banna told AFP, adding he learned of his son's death from an unidentified caller who told him he died a "martyr" in Iraq.