Policeman arrested for sexual assault in Kirkuk

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A policeman, alongside another man, has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the sexual assault of a woman in Kirkuk.

The assault took place on April 1, but arrests were not made until Wednesday after news of the assault that took place in an abandoned building went viral on social media.

Police have arrested a fellow policeman, thought to be the perpetrator of the assault, alongside a man said to be an accomplice who filmed the assault. However, unconfirmed reports speculate that more than two men arrested were involved in the attack.

Afrasyaw Kamil, spokesperson for the Kirkuk police, confirmed to Rudaw late Thursday that one of the arrested was police.

“One of them is a policeman who had just returned to the job [after leaving his position or being fired for unknown reasons]. The other one had wanted to join Hashd, but was not recruited. He is not employed. He is an IDP who lives in Prde [Altun Kupri],” he said in response to accusations that Hashd members being the perpetrators 

Kamil denied the involvement of more than the two arrested in the assault.

Rudaw has obtained footage of the assault.

The survivor is a disabled woman in her forties who lives with her husband in Altun Kupri, a town located on the Kirkuk-Erbil border. Her husband also has special needs, and cannot walk.

“I get along with my wife but we live in poverty,” the survivor’s husband told Rudaw on Thursday.

He says their life is miserable because they do not have an income and are heavily dependent on donations. The couple has no family, as their relatives have abandoned them, and they had to give up their son to another family, because they could not support him, he added.

Jiwan Hasan, a former member of Kirkuk Provincial Council which has now been dissolved, blames the Iraqi government for not sheltering the woman.

“This woman is mentally ill and uses medicine. Sometimes, she is unconscious of what she does [due to her illness]. We tried to institutionalize her at a government-sponsored shelter, but unfortunately the Iraqi government has been very negligent in this regard,” she told Rudaw.

“We do not have a shelter for the mentally ill. We do not even have a hospital for them. She is not old enough to be moved to a retirement home,” added Hassan. 

Hasan warned that the accused being a policeman may reduce the public’s trust in security forces.