Iraqi police last week were bragging about the execution of 44 Sunni prisoners in Baqubah, shooting dead the “suspects” when ISIS was reportedly near the city.
Today, another 70 Sunni prisoners were killed near Hillah, being transported south for “security reasons.” Their deaths are eerily similar, coming after the convoy came under gunfire, and local police say that the escorts decided to execute them because they didn’t trust the Iraqi courts to handle the cases.
The official story is that they were all killed in the “crossfire” with ISIS, though since only a handful of police were even wounded it is hard to imagine every single prisoner got killed in a reportedly brief clash.
The growing number of mysterious Sunni deaths in custody only adds to the double-standard of the Maliki government, which late last week freed a number of Shi’ite prisoners, including many who were sentenced to life imprisonment, to join militias, and seem to be killing Sunni detainees, even those held without charges, on any pretext.