‘This shows that the judicial system in Iraq is horribly broken’

With all the attention on today’s primary races, it’s easy to overlook the fact that the Maliki government in Iraq won’t even pretend to take the rule of law seriously.

Two former high-ranking Shiite government officials charged with kidnapping and killing scores of Sunnis were ordered released Monday after prosecutors dropped the case. The abrupt move renewed concerns about the willingness of Iraq’s leaders to act against sectarianism and cast doubts on U.S. efforts to build an independent judiciary.

The collapse of the trial stunned American and Iraqi officials who had spent more than a year assembling the case, which they said included a wide array of evidence.

“This shows that the judicial system in Iraq is horribly broken,” said a U.S. legal adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. “And it sends a terrible signal: If you are Shia, then no worries; you can do whatever you want and nothing is going to happen to you.”

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to allow the case to proceed to trial was considered a significant step toward proving his Shiite-led government could hold Shiite officials accountable for sectarian crimes.

Maybe John McCain could tell us again about how confident we should all feel about progress in Iraq.

The reality is, this specific legal controversy in Iraq is dangerous and will likely lead to greater instability. The closer one looks at the story, the more outrageous it appears.

The trial of Hakim al-Zamili, a former deputy health minister, and Brig. Gen. Hamid Hamza Alwan Abbas al-Shamari, who led the agency’s security force, was the most public airing of evidence that Baghdad hospitals had become death zones for Sunnis seeking treatment there. The officials, followers of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the feared Mahdi Army militia, were accused of organizing and supporting the murder of Sunni doctors; the use of ambulances to transfer weapons for Shiite militia members; and the torture and kidnapping of Sunni patients. […]

Eventually the panel announced that the trial would begin on Feb. 19, but three hours after it was scheduled to begin, a spokesman for the Iraqi court system, Judge Abdul Satar Ghafur al-Bayrkdar, said the case would be delayed until March 2 because witnesses had failed to appear.

American officials, however, said evidence had emerged that one of the trial judges had promised to find the defendants not guilty and that a senior judge had ordered him to be replaced.

Witness intimidation has been one of the most significant concerns in the trial.

Many of the witnesses agreed to testify only because they believed their names would be kept secret, but their names were leaked and supporters of the former Health Ministry officials threatened to kill them or their families if they didn’t recant their testimony, American officials said.

Joe Klein added:

This was a very high profile case, a real test of whether the Maliki government would insist on justice that punishes Shi’ites…in this case, Sadr-related Shi’ites who were alleged to have been massively corrupt and to have operated death squads out of the Ministry of Interior.

You have to wonder what impact this–plus the visit of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad–will have on the Sunnis, who think the Maliki government is just a bunch of camouflaged Iranian agents, in any case. I’ll be especially interested to watch the reaction of those Sunnis in the Community Awakening Councils–i.e. the former jihadis–who switched over to our side in the past year and have been having trouble getting cooperation from the national government.

Our “allies” offer no reason for optimism.