Iraqi officer, 3 soldiers admit rape

BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi police official in the northeastern city of Tal Afar said Thursday that a military officer and three soldiers had admitted raping a Sunni woman and recording the act with a cell phone camera.

The four soldiers told an investigative committee convened by the Iraqi Army that they sexually assaulted the woman nearly two weeks ago, according to Gen. Najem Abdullah.

The soldiers’ admission follows another Sunni woman’s assertion this week that she had been raped in Baghdad by members of Iraq’s predominately Shiite security forces. Iraq’s Kurdish president and its Sunni vice president said Thursday that a judge should investigate her case, which the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has dismissed as groundless.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said in a statement that the courts were “the only legitimate place to examine such allegations” and that the government should avoid steps that would “inflame sensitivities and create mistrust.”

Talabani’s stance, echoed by vice president Tarik al-Hashimi, is sharply at odds with al-Maliki’s insistence that the 20-year-old Baghdad woman who contends three Iraqi policemen raped her Sunday is a criminal who fabricated the story to exacerbate sectarian tension and undermine a U.S. and Iraqi security plan to pacify the capital.

The case has caused a political uproar – with Sunnis demanding justice and Shiites defending the officers.