Iraqi police confirm beheading arrests

Iraqi police have confirmed they arrested four people for the killing of kidnapped American Nicholas Berg whose beheading was videotaped, an Iraqi security official said today.

The suspects were former members of Saddam Hussein’s Fedayeen paramilitary organisation, said the official.

They were arrested a week ago.

Berg’s body was found in Baghdad on May 8. He had been decapitated. He was last seen on April 10 when he left his Baghdad hotel.

The four were arrested a week ago in a house in Salaheddin province, north of Baghdad.

The group was led by Yasser al-Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam Hussein, the security official said.

He said American intelligence had asked Iraqi authorities to hand over the suspects, but they were still in Iraqi hands.

Al-Sabawi was not among those arrested, the Iraqi official said.

American officials have said they believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian wanted for allegedly organising terrorists to fight US troops in Iraq on behalf of al-Qaida, carried out Berg’s killing.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Samir Shaker Mahmoud al-Sumeidi refused to comment on reports of arrests in the Berg case.

The body of Berg, 26, was found May 8 near a highway overpass in Baghdad.

A video posted May 11 on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site showed a bound Berg in an orange jump-suit – similar to those issued to prisoners held by the American military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He was sitting in front of five men, their faces masked, as one read an anti-American text.

After pushing Berg to the floor, the men severed his head using sawing motions with a big knife and held it up for the camera.

They said his killing was in response to the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison.