Former Karbala local council member turns himself in to authorities

KARBALA / IraqiNews.com: A former member of the Karbala provincial council turned himself in to authorities on Thursday to complete procedures of a complaint lodged against him over an editorial he published in a local newspaper. “I have turned myself in to the authorities after some organizations lodged a complaint against me over an editorial I had published in the newspaper Karbala Today, of which I was editor-in-chief,” Ghaleb al-Daami told IraqiNews.com news agency. “According to this complaint, I was accused of having supported the Karbala Crime Department, which two years ago was suspected of involvement in outlawed practices,” Daami added. “The security authorities to which I have turned myself in referred me to the prosecutor, who released me for lack of sufficient evidence,” he said, denying reports by the mass media that he was arrested at his house in the town of al-Hindiya, (20 km) east of Karbala, on charges of “financing terrorist groups”. Daami was one of three members of the former provincial council in Karbala who had been wanted after the incidents of al-Ziyara al-Shaabaniya , or the mid-Shaaban visit, which marks the birth anniversary of Imam al-Mahdi, the Messiah-like 12th holy figure for Shiite Muslims, on August 28, 2007, which resulted in armed confrontations between security forces and armed groups, leaving hundreds of local residents killed or wounded. Apart from Daami, arrest warrants had bee issued against Ahmed al-Husseini, the chief of the council’s awqaf (endowments) committee, and Jawad al-Hassanawi, the deputy governor, both are candidates from the Sadrist Movement, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr. The warrants were not activated. The holy Shiite city of Karbala, said to be housing the tomb of Imam al-Hussein, the third holiest figure for Shiite Muslims, lies 110 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. AmR (S) 1