Kirkuk police arrest two suspects accused of kidnapping, killing child

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kirkuk police on Friday arrested two civilians who allegedly kidnapped and killed the son of a security forces officer, according to Iraq's interior ministry, after the child reportedly went missing on Thursday. 

Through coordination with the Salahaddin province police, the forces "were able to arrest the main suspect in Salahaddin province, who confessed that he had carried out the kidnapping," with the second suspect arrested in Kirkuk shortly after, according to a statement shared by the ministry on Friday.

The suspects kidnapped Ayub Ahmed, the child, while he was playing by his house, and the two "killed him a day ago and dumped his body on the side of the Kirkuk-Sulaimani highway," the statement continued.

Kirkuk police spokesperson Amer Muheidin told Rudaw that the perpetrators asked for 200 million Iraqi dinars in exchange for the child's release but later killed him, without adding how.

Muheidin added that the child's father is an instrumental figure in fighting crime in Salahaddin province.

Earlier this month, Kirkuk police arrested a father accused of brutally torturing his two-year old daughter, with the child having suffered internal bleeding from a fractured skull as well as multiple burn scars on her body.