|
Missing Saudi Pilot Identified Through DNA Test
JEDDAH, Sept 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Saudi Arabia confirmed Friday the death of one of its pilots shot down in the 1991 Gulf War after a series of DNA tests proved that Iraq was not holding him prisoner, news agencies reported Saturday.
"Specialized DNA laboratories proved that the remains are those of Saudi pilot, Lt. Col. Muhammad Saleh Nadira," an official source at the Saudi Defense Ministry told the Saudi Press Agency, the Saudi Daily Arab News reported.
"After verifying the laboratory data, the ministry is now certain that Lt. Col. Nadira was martyred," the source said. Nadira's plane was shot down in a part of Iraq that had become largely inaccessible during the Gulf War because of mines planted to limit the movement of Iraqi troops, said the paper.
Iraq said in January that tests conducted in Geneva under the auspices of the International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that the remains found last October in the Iraqi desert were those of the pilot, news agencies reported.
Saudi media said at the time that the kingdom had demanded a re-examination to determine the cause and time of his death.
Iraq had said the pilot's plane was shot down in 1991. An Iraqi officer who had buried the pilot in a minefield identified the burial site, and the wreckage of a plane was found about one kilometer (half a mile) away.
Saudi Arabia had accused the Iraqi government of holding the body of the pilot and sought help from the international community to bring him back.
"After verifying the laboratory data, the Ministry of Aviation and Defense is now certain that the aforementioned pilot was martyred," a ministry official said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, reported UAE daily the Gulf News.
Iraqi-Saudi relations have remained cool since the Gulf war, which was touched off by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Saudi Arabia sent some of its airmen to join U.S.-led allied forces in bombing Iraqi targets during the war.
The kingdom, along with Kuwait, allows U.S. and British warplanes to use its bases to enforce two so-called "no-fly zones" in southern and northern Iraq.
Hundreds of people were reported missing after the Gulf War. Accounting for them is one of several conditions Iraq must meet before sanctions are lifted.
According to a recent report published by the human rights group, Amnesty International (AI), Iraq has the world's worst record for numbers of people who have disappeared and remain unaccounted for, reported BBC's Online news service.
The group said hundreds of thousands of Muslims disappeared before the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, allegedly for being of Iranian origin.
Another 100,000 Kurds are believed to have gone missing in Iraq following Operation Anfal in 1988.
Amnesty urged "all governments to conduct full investigations, in accordance with international standards, into all cases of disappearances to bring those responsible to justice."
The call coincided with the International Day of the Disappeared, aimed at highlighting illegal detentions around the world, said the BBC.
|
