ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The bodies of three members of a Kurdish family killed at their Baghdad home arrived in their city of origin of Sulaimani for burial on Thursday.
Dara Rauf, his wife Aliya Rashid, and their daughter Sheelan Dara were killed on Tuesday night in the Mansour neighbourhood of west Baghdad.
A branch of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) announced on Wednesday that they had arrested Hussein Nasir, an acquaintance of Rauf and Russian Embassy of Iraq guard for the murder. The KRSC released a video purportedly showing Nasir confessing to the triple murder, shortly before they handed him over to Baghdad.
Rauf's nephew Mohammed Qadir spoke to press from in front of Sulaimani's Aha Sur mosque, where the bodies of his relatives were being washed ready for burial. He thanked the Iraqi presidency for its assistance in bringing the bodies to Sulaimani.
"The confession of the culprit himself was everything to us," Qadir said.
The bodies will be buried at the city's Saywan 1 Cemetry, he added.
Iraq's prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi on Wednesday thanked Kurdistan Region premier Masrour Barzani and Erbil's security forces for the quick arrest and handover of Nasir, describing the murder as a "heinous crime".
Prime minister Barzani said shortly afterwards that he was "proud" of the Kurdish forces who apprehended Nasir for "brutally" murdering the family.
"I thank the Erbil city's security agencies who managed to arrest the main culprit as soon as possible," Barzani said.
In the confession video released by KRSC branch the Counter Terrorism Directorate (CTD), 36-year-old Nasir said he had planned only to get money from Rauf.
"I've known Shilan's father for four years. Two days ago, I needed some money because I was in debt. I visited him in his apartment...I asked him to lend me a certain amount of money, but he refused saying 'I do not have it'. We fought; there was a knife near me. I grabbed it and stabbed him. He fell to the ground. As I tried to remove evidence of the crime, his wife returned," Nasir recounted.
"I was in shock. She started to scream. I stabbed her as well. She fell to the ground."
"I took the bodies to the bathroom and turned the taps on. At this point, Sheelan returned and saw everything...I tried to calm her down, but she wouldn't. She hit me over the head with an ashtray. I punched her twice and she fell. There was a pillow nearby, with which I smothered her. I again tried to remove what was left of the crime, but I didn't know what to do."
After killing them, he started to search for money – finding "around $10,000". He said that he left the scene with the money, their cellphones and the knife he used as a murder weapon.
Nasir then fled to Erbil by taxi.
"I went to one of the hotels. I wanted to travel abroad from Erbil. The next day I wanted to get a visa, for Turkey or any other place, but I couldn't get one, so I returned to the hotel. As soon as I arrived back, I was captured," he recalled.
He did not say if there were other people involved in the crime.
While speaking to press at Aha Sur, Qadir dismissed reports that there had been any rape or mutilation of his relatives' bodies.
"What is circulating in the media, it's all untrue. There was no amputation of legs or hands or beheading, or rape. It was just a theft raid," he said.
Qadir said his aunt and uncle, both retired, had been living in Baghdad since the 1960s.
Neighbours of Rauf's family who spoke to Rudaw on Wednesday were full of praise for the victims.
"Mr. Dara was a very peaceful man. After Maghrib and Isha prayers, we'd come here. We were four elderly friends," Sabah Ahmed, Dara's friend and his neighbor, told Rudaw.
Mohammed Najat, another neighbor, said "they were the best people, very honorable and had no issues. We are shocked. This incident will never be easy to forget."
Dr. Ahmed Abbas, a friend of Sheelan, said she was a "very good person". He urged the Iraqi government to take "the strongest measures" to prevent similar bloodshed from happening in the future.
This is the second murder of a family in their home in Baghdad in just a fortnight. On September 7, a gunman was apprehended by federal police for shooting dead a family of five - a father, mother, and their three children - in southwestern Baghdad's al-Ameen neighbourhood.
