Iraq's Government Also Kills People Who Might Be Innocent

From CNN.com:

[Samar Saed Abdullah] is accused of being an accessory to the murder of her uncle, aunt and cousin -- slayings that allegedly were carried out at their family home by her husband.

In the court documents from her trial, she admitted to confessing she had gone to her uncle's house with her husband with the intent to steal, but she says she made that confession as a result of being tortured.

In reaching its verdict, the court disregarded her testimony on the grounds that her confession was closer to the date of the crime.

She was tried and convicted in a single day, August 15, 2005.

"She didn't confess," her mother, Hana'a Abdul Hakim, told CNN. "It was from the beating they gave her. She was bleeding. She finally said write what you want, just stop."

Under Iraqi law, her claim to confessing under torture should have been investigated, but it wasn't. CNN's repeated queries to the Higher Judicial Council and the Ministry of Justice went unanswered.