Pentagon reopens file in chemist's death in Iraq
March 25, 2005

By CHARLES J. HANLEY:

NEW YORK -- The U.S. Army says it has reopened an investigation into the suspected bludgeoning death of a key Iraqi scientist in U.S. custody, a chemist who allegedly experimented with poisons on prisoners in the days of Saddam Hussein.

Mohammad Munim al-Izmerly, 65, is the only known weapons scientist among at least 96 detainees who have died in U.S. custody in Iraq. Questions have surrounded the death ever since his body was dropped off at a Baghdad hospital in February of 2004, two weeks after he died.

When it first came to light in press reports in May, the U.S. military, newly under fire for prisoner abuse in Iraq, refused to answer queries about the chemist's death. Now, months later, the Army says an investigation has begun.

"The case was initially closed, but after further investigative review, a determination was made to reopen the investigation," Army spokesman Christopher Grey said.

The Pentagon would say nothing about the timetable or thrust of the inquiry. But Rod Barton, an Australian member of the CIA-led teams that questioned Mr. al-Izmerly and other weapons scientists, says such prisoners may have been beaten during the futile U.S. hunt for banned
arms in Iraq.

When Mr. al-Izmerly's body was delivered to al-Kharkh Hospital, the Americans enclosed a death certificate saying he died of "brainstem compression," without saying what caused it, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported after viewing the document last year. A subsequent Iraqi autopsy determined he was killed by a blunt-trauma injury, a blow to the head, Iraqi doctors told
Baghdad reporters.

New details are emerging about the role Mr. al-Izmerly played in Iraq's weapons underworld.

In contrast to a "distinguished chemistry professor," the portrayal in one press report last May, U.S. weapons investigators now say Mr. al-Izmerly was an early leader of Iraq's effort to make chemical arms, and an assassination specialist who once devised a "poison pen."

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