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Task force puts Iraqi courts back to work

A PowerPoint concept presented to the top military commander in Iraq earlier this year has grown into a task force capable of investigating major crimes, prosecuting prisoners and restoring confidence in the war-torn nation’s legal and justice system.

The Law and Order Task Force, located at Forward Operating Base Shield in Baghdad’s Rusafa district, is a collection of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and civilians from the Justice Department.

Their work often goes unnoticed back home, but the progress they have made has jump-started Iraq’s justice system, which fell apart at the start of the war in 2003 and continued to deteriorate as the war progressed. Last year, more than 30 Iraqi judges were assassinated.

“The idea was to help build Iraqi judicial capacity, to give them a secure environment to conduct investigations, conduct trials in a fair and open way,” Michael Walther, director of the task force, said Oct. 29. “It just made common sense. A judge and prosecutor can go to work every day and not worry about being assassinated, without worrying about threats to their families.”

As of Oct. 23, the 28 Iraqi judges for the Central Criminal Court of Iraq at Rusafa have conducted 319 trials and dismissed 675 other cases, Walther said.

“In total, they’ve processed 1,000 cases to conclusion,” he said. “The court still has another 2,500 or so cases waiting to have the investigation completed or waiting for trial.”

Now, in an effort to expand on the progress of the Law and Order Task Force, military and civilian authorities are looking at building five similar task forces across the country.

“This was a test, and I guess an indication of our success is they’re now looking at five other sites in Iraq for potential, similar task force arrangements,” Walther said. “But a lot will depend on how the security environment continues to improve over the next months.”

The task force was an idea presented to Gen. David Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, when he took command in February. His staff judge advocate, Col. Mark Martins, liked the idea, and his backing helped make the task force a reality, Walther said.

Walther, who is a Justice Department attorney, director of the National Drug Intelligence Center and an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, has a team of about 50 military and 75 civilian attorneys, investigators and paralegals working for him. Most of them are Americans, but some attorneys and investigators are from Great Britain and Australia.

Most of the personnel were in place in mid-May, and on June 7, less than a month later, the task force oversaw its first major trial.

The defendant, an al-Qaida cell leader, Syrian by birth, who fought in the battle for Baghdad in 2003 and the battle for Fallujah in 2004, was convicted of various crimes and sentenced to death. His case is pending at the court of appeals.

To give the justice system a chance to work, the task force needed secure facilities. A search led to the Rusafa district in Baghdad, which was ideal because FOB Shield, the Baghdad Police College, the Rusafa prison and the Ministry of Interior headquarters were all in the same location, Walther said.

“We felt that we could take a small piece of real estate inside the walls of Rusafa prison and turn it into a secure court complex,” he said. “Meanwhile, we took a small piece of real estate in the Baghdad Police College and turned dormitories into apartments for the judges and their families. That was sort of our principal responsibility going in, just creating this judicial complex.”

Walther and his staff also knew that the troop buildup in Baghdad would produce a spike in the number of prisoners entering the Iraqi court system.

“We knew we had to find more space to put these prisoners,” he said.

The prison population has grown from 2,500 prisoners to more than 7,000 and the task force built seven compounds to help accommodate them, Walther said.

“We’re creeping up to within a few hundred of capacity,” Walther said. “In part, the reason for the rapid increase in the prison population is because the other jail facilities in the Baghdad area that were overcrowded were able to transfer their prisoners here.”

Now, almost all the jails in Baghdad are within international standards for prisoner capacity, Walther said.

In addition to ensuring prisoners get fair and speedy trials and easing the overburdened prison system, the task force also investigates major crimes, including terrorist activity.

“Some of the cases involve terrorists, some of them involve corruption by members of the Iraqi government,” Walther said. “In addition to our U.S. military investigators, we have a team of four federal agents and we have four Iraqi investigators. We’re able to flex our investigative muscle, so to speak, in ways that the U.S. military alone or the Iraqi police alone were not able to do.”

Another advantage for the task force is the ability to take military intelligence and have it declassified for use as evidence in criminal cases, he said. Most of that work is done by three Navy intelligence officers.

Right now, the military investigators are from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Navy masters-at-arms who receive special training to be investigators. The federal agents represent the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

An upcoming case will be the prosecution of 10 suspects in the assassination of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, the popular leader of the “Anbar Awakening,” a movement to oppose al-Qaida insurgents in Anbar province. Sattar was killed in September near his home in Ramadi.

“We got a call saying they had 10 suspects in custody,” Walther said. “They asked us to try them here. Both the Iraqi and coalition authorities felt the security issues would be difficult to deal with out in Anbar and we could keep them secure here and we could ensure they have a fair trial here.”

The legal personnel conduct their business following Iraqi law, Walther said.

“What’s happening here is the exercise of long-standing Iraqi law,” he said. “The security situation had disrupted all normal government activity, including the court system. All the judges are doing here is carrying out the same cases in the way mandated by their own law.”

All of the Iraqi judges are experienced, Walther said. For example, the chief judge has been a judge for nearly 30 years, he said.

“Obviously, the Iraqi judges are doing the hard work every day, making these difficult decisions, often life-and-death decisions, but we’re very proud of our part in giving them a forum to make these difficult decisions,” Walther said.

The task force currently has four Iraqi investigators. Walther said he wants to increase the number to 30 or 40.

“I think this task force probably has another year, perhaps, maybe not that long,” he said. “Maybe in six months, we may be in the position for the Iraqis to take full responsibility for the task force.”

In the meantime, Walther said, his major objective is to change Iraqis’ impression of their court system.

“There was a lot of skepticism, and I’m sure there still is skepticism, [among] the Iraqis about their courts. Are they honest? Are they sectarian? Are these guys getting a fair trial? The only way to convince the Iraqi public that they have an honest judicial system is to open it up to public scrutiny.”

The Rusafa courtroom, built by the task force, includes a high-tech audio-visual system to record all the trials. These recordings can be released in whole or in part by the Iraqi media for the public to see, Walther said.

“In the U.S., we take it for granted that if you or I go to court, we’re going to get a fair shake from the judge,” he said. “The Iraqis, for some time now, have not had that confidence. I want to give that back to them.”