Egyptian national arrested for allegedly killing four in Basra

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq's interior ministry on Monday announced the arrest of an Egyptian national accused of killing four people, dismembering parts of their bodies, and hiding the remains in different areas of Basra.

According to the ministry statement, the Basra police directorate received reports about dismembered body parts found in a number of waste containers in the Tuwaisa and Dur al-Naft areas.

After launching a series of investigations, the police had uncovered “evidence pointing to murder” including blood-stained clothes, a hammer, a knife, and hair scraps. Additionally, the statement said that authorities in Basra had been alerted to four missing Egyptian construction workers by the country’s consulate in the southern Iraqi province.

The suspect, another Egyptian national, was arrested by security forces in Baghdad and allegedly confessed to the murders, according to the statement.

“He [the suspect] confessed to killing those four and cutting their bodies into pieces and distributing them in different areas in Basra.”

Ali al-Ibadi, head of the Iraq Center for Human Rights, told Rudaw’s Hemin Baban Rahim on Monday that the police have launched a probe into the incident, adding the motive behind the killings has yet to be revealed.

Iraqi police on Sunday announced the arrest of a suspected leader of a Shiite religious extremist group in Diwaniyah province who had allegedly killed two members of his own organization as sacrifice, one day before Shiites in Iraq celebrated Eid al-Adha.