Iraq threatens arrest of police officer (Capt. Jamil Hussein acknowledged)

Thursday, January 4, 2007 · Last updated 2:11 p.m. PT

Iraq threatens arrest of police officer

By STEVEN R. HURST
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi
police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S.
military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces
arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there
was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview
that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been
reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources
for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people
during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein
in questioning the veracity of the AP's initial reporting on the incident, and
the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted,
exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and
amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein's identity
in order to disseminate false news about the war.

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