Calls for justice for cameraman slain in Iraq

as posted here

The AFP has announced a war crimes probe into the deaths of five Australian-based newsmen in Balibo in 1975. Why then has there been no investigation into the murder in Iraq in 2003 of Australian cameraman Paul Moran? The terrorist leader who created the suicide bomber unit that killed Moran is alive and well. He is living in Norway and taunting the Australian Government to come and get him. Yet Canberra does nothing.

I've learned to dread late night phone calls - and this one was the worst. It was March 2003, during the opening phase of the Iraq war. Just after midnight I took the call from an anguished Michael Ware - an Australian journalist and close colleague of mine, then working for Time Magazine.

Coming down the satellite phone line was a mix of static, screaming and sirens. Amid the cacophony, Michael managed to spell out that he was at a roadblock in Kurdish northern Iraq that had just been hit by a suicide bomber in a taxi. He was on the scene giving assistance to ABC journalist Eric Campbell, dazed and bloodied after being hit by shrapnel, but alive. However there was the body of another westerner among the victims - possibly an Australian - who was he?

The tragic details soon became clear. He was 39-year-old Paul Moran, a freelance cameraman originally from Adelaide. He had teamed up with Eric Campbell on the Iraq assignment for ABC News. Paul left behind a young widow Ivana and a seven-week-old daughter Tara.

The suicide attack had been carried out by a Saudi Arabian member of Ansar al Islam, an extremist group fighting for the creation of a radical Islamic state in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. The bomber died but his commander is alive and well and living in Norway, his home in exile since being granted asylum in the early 90s.

His name is Najmaddin Faraj Ahmad but he is better known as Mullah Krekar, founder of Ansar al Islam, which is listed as an Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist organisation by several countries and the United Nations. Krekar commuted regularly from his Oslo flat back to Iraq as he created the terrorist group Ansar. He also raised a special Ansar unit of suicide bombers, and in an interview for our 2007 report Norwegian Jihad he boasted how he had refined this dark art for his recruits who would be sent on a oneway ticket to martyrdom.

"There's no different between suicide bombs and using Kalashnikov," he told me.

"What's the difference when you send the fighters to death, what's the difference between someone who uses only on/off or someone who use his finger, what's the difference? It's the same."

One week after the suicide attack on the ABC team in 2003, the Australian Government formally listed Ansar al Islam as a terrorist group, stating that Ansar had almost certainly been responsible for Moran's murder.

Krekar was named as an Ansar leader. In 2005, the Australian Attorney-General's Department declared that Krekar was now disassociated from the group - also known as Ansar al Sunna - but gave no evidence as to how that conclusion had been reached. Krekar's name was struck off the list without any formal Australian Government investigation of Moran's death. No one in Norwegian police, judicial or intelligence circles involved in the Krekar case could recall being approached by the Australian Government formally or otherwise. Australian authorities certainly did not speak to Krekar himself.

In 2007, when I met Krekar in his flat in Oslo, he taunted the Australian Government to come and get him.

"[The suicide bomber] came from an organisation that you created, that you trained, that you helped organise. Do you feel that you take any responsibility for this?" I asked him.

"If there was something against me, Norwegian people or Australian people, John Howard can send some people or some papers, some letters to court in Norway," he replied.

"He can say that yes, Mullah Krekar, you can ask him about this also. But when they didn't, no one asked me about this, it mean that I haven't any contact with this."

When I asked him what he would say to Moran's widow and to his other family members, he replied that he would say "to all of the Western women, don't send your sons to kill us".

"He wasn't killing anybody, he was a cameraman," I pointed out.

"Yes he was, he was also with our enemy," Krekar replied.

Krekar claimed he had relinquished command of Ansar in 2002, 10 months before Moran's murder. The critical question is - did Krekar still have control of Ansar al Islam at the time of Moran's death?

Both the US Government and the United Nations certainly think so. In December 2006, the US Treasury and the United Nations Security Council declared Krekar to be "an Al Qaeda facilitator". The US Treasury also stated that he was still covertly financing Ansar al Islam through a European network in Germany and Bulgaria. The Treasury also claimed he was active as a recruiter and commanded sniper teams in Iraq.

Krekar would face almost certain execution if sent home to Iraq, but his biggest trump card remains Norway's long tradition of granting haven to those seeking political asylum. Despite more than 40 court appearances, Krekar has avoided extradition to either Iraq or the United States, due to Norway's strict policy of refusing to deport individuals to countries that engage in torture or have the death penalty. The Norwegian Government concedes he has exploited the system and is a threat to national security, but says he has committed no serious crime in Norway, nor harmed Norwegians at home or abroad.

Moran's death is another matter entirely. It is a case the Norwegians have not investigated. If Australian officials wish to question Krekar, they need only ask.

When our report, Norwegian Jihad, was broadcast in November 2007, there was no official comment from Canberra. "Too hard, too long ago," I was told on background. In June 2009, Krekar's name re-emerged in connection with Ansar al Islam, when the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security tabled its report on the re-listing of Ansar al Islam as a terrorist organisation.

Part of our story was paraphrased in ASIO's submission to the committee: "Australians are considered a legitimate target by Ansar al Islam, which was responsible for a suicide car bombing in March 2003 that killed ABC journalist Paul Moran and five Kurdish soldiers. The group's founder and original leader, Mular Krekar, reiterated these sentiments recently, claiming in November 2007 that not only was Moran's death justified but also that it was legitimate for Ansar al Islam 'to kill Australian soldiers in Iraq ... to kill his translator, to kill the people which [sic] give him food and water'." But there was no mention of the detailed allegations made by both the United Nations Security Council and the US Treasury Department that Krekar was still very much part of the Ansar leadership at the time of Moran's death.

If the Australian Federal Police is now prepared to investigate the murder of a group of newsmen in an incident that occurred 34 years ago, why not examine the more recent murder of another Australian national, Paul Moran?

Krekar is not hard to find - he has become a minor celebrity in Norway. If the AFP or ASIO have trouble locating him they need only consult the United Nations Security Council's list of Al Qaeda-associated groups and individuals. His Oslo address is there, online, for all to see.

Mark Corcoran has been a reporter/producer/presenter with the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program for 13 years. He has a special interest in security and terrorism issues in South Asia and the Middle East. Since 2001, Corcoran has reported extensively on various aspects of Washington's "War on Terror" from locations as diverse as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, France, Norway, the United States and Greece.

as posted here