Mother of young man shot dead by police says her son was innocent

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The mother of a 24-year-old man who was shot dead on Sunday night by Zeravani police says that her son was innocent and those responsible should be held accountable.

“I have raised them for 18 years without a father…. yesterday he came back to eat and left, he never came back. They killed him without a reason,” Aliya Ibrahim, unaware why her son was murdered, told Rudaw’s Ranja Jamal on Monday.

Sadiq Abdulkhaliq Jamal, a barber, was inside a car with a woman near Manara bank on the 150 meters road in Erbil on Sunday night. The circumstances around his death are not clear. What is clear is that he was shot dead in his car by two Zeravani police officers.

Erbil police said in a statement on Monday that their initial investigation suggests that there was a woman inside the car who cried for help as Abdulkhaliq “attempted to sexually assault her,” without revealing any further details surrounding the incident.

Two police officers, who were on duty outside the bank, around 200 meters away from Abdulkhaliq’s car, went to investigate.

The suspect, Erbil police statement claims, tried to flee the scene, and at around 9:00 pm the officers showered the car with bullets, fatally wounding Abdulkhaliq, who died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

The two shooters handed themselves to the police, and the woman in the car has also been arrested. The Zeravani force is local military police and is under the command of the Kurdistan Region’s interior ministry.

Abdulkhaliq, a graduate of the Biology department, lived in Erbil with his brother and mother. His murder sparked rage and shock through in the woman who raised her sons as a single mom, all alone.

Rudaw English reached out to Erbil police spokesperson Hogr Aziz to learn further details, but he was not immediately available.