Sunni politician's body 'showed signs of torture'

The body of an official with Iraq’s largest Sunni Muslim political group was found with signs of torture, his party said today.

Waad Jassim al-Ani, a 30-year member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was detained by an unspecified “security agency” over the weekend, the party said. His body was brought today to the Health Ministry’s morgue, according to a statement.

“He was so badly tortured that it was very difficult to identify his body,” the statement added.

Sunni leaders accuse Iraq’s Shiite-led Interior Ministry of running death squads that target them – a charge denied by the ministry.

A party official, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said nine masked men stormed al-Ani’s house in Baghdad’s northern Qahira district and kidnapped him on Saturday.

Al-Ani, 46, was a civil engineer who worked for a relief agency, the party said. He was the party’s deputy leader in Qahira.

The killing follows a deadly wave of sectarian violence unleashed by last week’s bombing of a revered Shiite shrine and reprisal attacks against Sunni mosques. Sunni and Shiite religious leaders have appealed for calm and urged their followers to stop killing fellow Iraqis.

“The incident confirms again that targeting civilians will continue and bloodletting will not stop until the government intercedes and puts an end to these crimes and punishes the criminals,” the statement went on.