Iraqis to Prosecute Case of Contractors’ Killers

Leaders in this besieged city and representatives of the U.S.-led occupation coalition have agreed that those responsible for the killing and mutilation of four American civilian contractors -- the attack that sparked a bloody Marine advance into the city this month -- will be prosecuted by an Iraqi judge, a key negotiator said Sunday.

Hachim Hassani, an acting member of the Iraqi Governing Council and the lead negotiator for a team of Iraqis that brokered a cease-fire in Fallouja, said the Americans had agreed to let the Iraqi justice system deal with the attackers.

A judge will be appointed and will issue warrants for those responsible for the March 31 ambush and subsequent mutilation of the contractors, Hassani said.

“This accomplishes a very important goal -- establishing law and a government system in the city,” he said.

Marines encircled the city after occupation officials, without success, called on the leaders of Fallouja to turn over those responsible for the killings. A stated goal of the current American operation has been to return law and order to the city.

A coalition official close to the discussions in Fallouja confirmed that the Americans had agreed to let an Iraqi judge take the case, but said the occupation authority still expected to have an active role in the pursuit and arrest of the culprits. The coalition has always expected that the Iraqi justice system would ultimately handle the matter, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Word of the agreement came as the military confirmed that a total of 12 U.S. troops had died Saturday, and that Spain’s new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, was ordering 1,300 Spanish soldiers to be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible.

Zapatero had campaigned on a promise to bring the soldiers home after the planned hand-over of power to Iraqis on June 30 unless the United Nations assumed military and political control of Iraq.

“With the information we have, and which we have gathered over the past few weeks, it is not foreseeable that the United Nations will adopt a resolution,” Zapatero said in a brief address.

Three of the Americans killed Saturday died in a nighttime ambush near the southern city of Diwaniya. The soldiers were reportedly attacked by militia members loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr, who remains encircled by American troops in the holy city of Najaf.

Five Marines died Saturday during an ambush by hundreds of insurgents outside their base near Qaim, near the Syrian border. The U.S. military said 25 to 30 guerrillas were killed. Another Marine was killed in an unspecified area of Al Anbar province, where Qaim is located.

One more American was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, another by a tank rollover in the capital, and a third was electrocuted by a faulty generator in the southern city of Samawah.

About 100 American troops have died in fighting since March 31, more than were killed in the three-week war to oust President Saddam Hussein last year.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a CNN interview accused insurgents in Fallouja of using women and children as human shields.

“The Marines are trying their best to maintain the cease-fire, but they’re getting fired upon by these extremists in Fallouja,” he said.

Myers said Sadr had largely been marginalized.

“His militia has either melted away or been killed or captured,” Myers said.

Despite the casualties, Fallouja was quiet Sunday. Iraqi police and civil defense officers, who had fled their posts when the Marine advance began, were returning to work. But military officials said the numbers were far smaller than hoped for.

The U.S. administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, said in a statement Sunday that Iraqi police and armed forces would not be strong enough to secure the country by June 30.

“Events of the past two weeks show that Iraq still faces security threats and needs outside help to deal with them,” Bremer said.

Falloujans were supposed to hand over their heavy weaponry to Marines and allow coalition forces to have open access to the city, Hassani said. Marines have received fire from mortars, grenades and rockets. Hassani said it was difficult to persuade some of the locals to relinquish their high-powered weaponry.

“Most people in the city fear that if they give up their weapons, the [American] forces will get into the city,” Hassani said. Hassani said he believed that the police would gradually return to Fallouja and become strong enough to enforce any judge’s orders to arrest those responsible for killing the contractors.

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Times wire services contributed to this report.