CAIRO, March 20, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – American occupation forces in Iraq routinely intervene with Iraqi law enforcement authorities to free dangerous criminals who agree to spy on the resistance, a leading British paper revealed on Sunday, March 20.

An Iraqi government source confirmed to the Independent On Sunday that criminals caught red-handed were often released if they agreed to inform on resistance fighters.

“The Americans are allowing the breakdown of Iraqi society because they are only interested in fighting the insurgency,” a senior Iraqi police officer told the paper.

Since the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces in April 2003, many Iraqis have fallen prey to a spree of abductions that usually involve hefty ransoms, in some cases as much as $60,000 (£31,000).

“We are dealing with an epidemic of kidnapping, extortion and violent crime, but even though we know the Americans monitor calls on mobiles and satellite phones, which are often used in ransom negotiations, they will not pass on any criminal intelligence to us,” said the police officer.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in several world capitals on Saturday, March 19, to protest the occupation of Iraq on the eve of the second anniversary of the US-led invasion of the oil-rich Arab country.

In March 2003, and acting without a UN mandate, US-led forces invaded oil-rich Iraq under the pretext of imminent threat posed by the country’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

A recent report by top US weapons inspector in Iraq, Charles Duelfer, concluded that Iraq had no WMD, raising concerns the invasion was based on false pretexts.

The British paper said it has seen documents citing an incident where Iraqi police rescued a doctor after a shootout with his kidnappers.

Two of the kidnap gang were arrested and made full confessions.

According to Iraqi police documents an American military police lieutenant took over custody of the two men to take them to the US-run Camp Cuervo detention center.

However, an American military spokesman told the paper that there was no record of the two prisoners in their database.

In another case, two members of an abduction gang - one a serving police lieutenant – were also freed after the Americans took custody of them.

In their confessions, obtained by the paper, Mohammed Najim Abdullah al-Dhouri, the police lieutenant, and Adnan Ashur Ali al-Jabouri give a unique picture of how the gangs work.

The Iraqi police were jubilant that they finally had detailed information on how a kidnap gang operated.

The two were willing to provide the names and addresses of other gang members.

However, to the consternation of the Iraq police, one day a convoy of US military police arrived at Al-Khansa police station and took custody of the two gangers.

Days later, relatives of the two suspects’ visited their abduction victim, Dr Thamir Mohammed Ali Hasafa Al-Kaisey.

They not only told him that Najim and Ashur had been freed, they also threatened him and his family to withdraw charges against the two kidnappers.