Would seem that they both have the same credibility and so we are back where we started from....
Are you a complete moron?
Iraq PM denies shooting inmates
17jul04
WITNESSES have reportedly told an Australian journalist how new Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi shot and killed up to six prisoners just days before his government took control of the country.
A newspaper report today said the two witnesses saw Dr Allawi pull a pistol and execute suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station. Dr Allawi's office has denied the claims and branded them "outrageous".
The witnesses said the handcuffed and blindfolded prisoners were lined up against a wall in a courtyard next to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre.
They say Dr Allawi told bystanders the victims had each killed as many as 50 Iraqis and they "deserved worse than death".
The prime minister's office said Dr Allawi had never visited the centre and he did not carry a gun.
One witness told the Sydney Morning Herald's Iraq correspondent Paul McGeough that before the killings Dr Allawi had told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.
"Allawi said that (the prisoners) deserved worse than death but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them," the witness said.
The informants said he shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the prime minister's personal security team watched.
The witnesses said seven prisoners were present, but one was only wounded.
The Herald said it was the first time eyewitness accounts of the prime minister's brutality had been obtained.
The witnesses, who were not paid for their information, estimated the shooting to have happened about the third weekend in June.
They were enthusiastic about such killings, with one of them saying: "These criminals were terrorists. They are the ones who plant the bombs."
They said the 58-year-old prime minister "wanted to send a message to his policemen and soldiers not to be scared if they kill anyone especially, they are not to worry about tribal revenge".
The Herald said two of men killed, Ahmed Abdulah Ahsamey and Amer Lutfi Mohammed Ahmed al-Kutsia, may have been foreign fighters.
A third, Walid Mehdi Ahmed al-Samarrai, may have been from Samarra, where insurgents raided the home of Interior minister Falah al-Naqib, killing four of his bodyguards on June 19.
Four of the men were described as "Wahabbi", the term for the foreign fundamentalist insurgency fighters.
Dr Allawi's office dismissed the allegations as rumours spread by the government's enemies.
"We face these sorts of allegations on a regular basis," office spokesman Taha Hussein reportedly said.
"Numerous groups are attempting to hinder what the interim Iraqi government is on the verge of achieving, and occasionally they spread outrageous accusations hoping they will be believed and thus harm the honourable reputation of those who sacrifice so much to protect this glorious country and its now free and respectable people."
A senior adviser to Mr al-Naqib, Sabah Khadum, whose portfolio covers police matters, also dismissed the accounts.
The Herald said US officials in Iraq did not deny allegations outright, but said "this case is closed".
