NIA legislator: Top officials involved in AQI prisoners escape in Basra

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: A lawmaker from the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA) bloc on Saturday accused “top political and security officials in Baghdad” of involvement in Friday’s escape of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) prisoners from the presidential palace compound in Basra. “The information we have disclosed that top political and security officials in Baghdad, including a senior state official, were involved in AQI prisoners’ jailbreak in Basra on Friday (Jan. 14),” Jawad Kadhem al-Bazzouni told IraqiNews.com news agency. Some AQI prisoners held on different charges had managed to escape from the Basra-based presidential palace compound despite tight-security measures there. Security and parliamentary sources put the number of runaway fugitives at 12. Bazzouni noted that senior officials in Basra tried to secure the release of those prisoners, who had been captured months ago. “The night before their escape, a security commander in Baghdad asked an officer to head for Basra and give the detainees his phone number”. He pointed out that the escaped prisoners had confessed to responsibility for “terrorist” operations, including the assassination of the Basra intelligence chief in 2008, the car bombing attack in al-Sinai’ya area in Basra and two blasts on Abdullah bin Ali street and the area of al-Qibla. AmR (TS)/SR 702