Chalabi’s What? An Unexpected Tidbit at the End of a Story about a British Murder Investigation

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Check out the penultimate graph from this excerpt of a British Press Association report today on a shooting in Iraq:

Five Iraqi police officers were identified as murderers by the only surviving witness of a massacre in which a British security worker was shot dead, an inquest heard today.

Former Royal Marine Brian Tilley, 47, was killed when up to six gunmen walked into his girlfriend’s house in the lawless al-Dawrah district of Baghdad and opened fire on May 14 2004.

The only surviving witness was a 15-year-old Iraqi girl known as Sarah, who told American military police the gunmen were wearing Iraqi police uniforms. …

Mr Tilley was dragged into the kitchen where he was beaten and then shot three times in the back and once in the stomach, Bournemouth, Poole and East Dorset Coroner’s Court heard.

>The gunmen then shot the rest of the occupants, who included Sarah, her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, her aunt, and two female friends, one of whom was Tilley’s girlfriend Iman.

Despite being shot in the head, the teenager survived the ordeal, the inquest sitting in Bournemouth heard. […]

Sarah told American military police they were still in their nightclothes when they were woken by the gunmen. …

The teenager gave evidence in a Baghdad court on June 22 2004 before an Iraqi judge, who issued an arrest warrant.[…]

Mr Tilley, from Heckford Road, Poole, was employed by a security company which was working for an Egyptian telecoms firm setting up a mobile phone network across Iraq at the time.

The inquest heard he had been dating Iman for around three months. She had previously been in a relationship with the Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi.

A post mortem showed he died from gunshot wounds caused by a high velocity rifle. Mr Morrissey recorded a verdict of unlawful killing.

Gruesome, and curious about Chalabi as well.

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