Corpses held for ransoms in Baghdad

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070501-121439-5721r.htm

Corpses held for ransoms in Baghdad

By Aqeel Hussein
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
May 1, 2007

BAGHDAD - Criminals in Baghdad are stealing corpses from the scenes of car bombings and killings in order to extract ransoms from grieving relatives.
In a macabre offshoot of the capital's kidnapping epidemic, the gangs pose as medics collecting bodies to be taken back to the city's overflowing morgues.
Instead, they take the corpses to secret places and demand payments of up to $5,000 to release each body to relatives for burial. Because Muslim custom dictates that a body must be buried as soon as possible after death, many families simply pay up, rather than involve the police.
"We have seen 40 families to whom this has happened, where people said that they have had to pay money to receive bodies," said Dr. Mohammed al-Nasrawi, an official at the Baghdad city morgue.
The new racket in "dead hostage taking" is thought to be run by gangs connected to the city's sectarian militias, many of whom are involved in conventional kidnappings.
Iraqi police said the gangs often respond to car bombings, which can leave more than 100 corpses on the streets. In the chaos, police and army units seldom question the credentials of people posing as ambulance crews.

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