Interior ministry to announce names of individuals implicated in MP killing

BAGHDAD/IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Interior official on Thursday said his ministry would announce the names of individuals implicated in killing a lawmaker loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in upcoming days. “The arrested wanted individuals admitted their involvement in killing MP Saleh al-Eikili”, Maj. Gen. Abdelkarim Khalaf, chief of National Command Centre in the Interior Ministry, told IraqiNews.com. However, the interior official stressed the Ministry “would not announce the names until al individuals involved in the killing operation are arrested”. PM Nouri al-Maliki ordered setting up a commission of inquiry headed by Interior Minister to probe the killing of MP Saleh al-Eakili from the Sadrist bloc and to bring the perpetrators to justice”. Al-Eikili was died of his wounds after his car was hit with a roadside bomb on the perimeters of Shiite slum Sadr City. The MP was a senior member of al-Sadr’s political bloc, which has 30 seats in the 275-member parliament. The Shiite cleric’s cease-fire order to his militia has been a key factor in a sharp decline in violence over the past year. Sadr City and surrounding areas were long dominated by al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia and where the site of fierce clashes between U.S.-Iraqi forces and Shiite extremists earlier this year. The area has been relatively peaceful after al-Sadr declared his cease-fire and the Iraqi security forces assumed control in late May. AM(S) 1