It has been nine months since Najim Abdullah Hamid was shot dead as he drove up to a United States military checkpoint on his way home.
Despite repeated requests by his relatives, no one from the Iraqi or US military authorities has agreed to investigate or accept responsibility.
His death, on March 7, has gone unnoticed save in the family’s small apartment in Saydiya in south Baghdad.
There, the walls are white and bare, marked only by stylised portraits of the dead man. Hamid (41) was the only one in his family who had a job, working as a grocer.
His younger brother, Ali, was a soldier under Saddam Hussein and his elder brother, Muhammad, worked in the regime’s high-level presidential offices. Both still receive pensions.
On the night their brother died he had gone out to buy plastic drainpipes. He didn’t return and for two days his family had no idea what had happened.
”We went to the police station and they said there had been a car accident and he was still alive but in jail,” said Ali Hamid (32). ”They took me to see the car and I saw the bullet holes. Then they told me he was dead.”
Over the past nine months the family has filled two blue files with documents about the case, including witness statements and photographs of the car. They clearly show nine bullet holes in the windscreen.
”One of the policemen told me I would find his body in the morgue,” said Ali Hamid. ”So I went there. He had bullet holes in his chest, his stomach, his neck and his head.”
Muhammad Hamid (40) went to the police station to ask about the case. ”The investigator just laughed at me. He said, ‘Why are you in such a rush?’ He showed me a pile of files of such accidents on his desk.”
The family took a sworn statement from an Iraqi soldier who had been at the checkpoint with the Americans and from another driver who had been directly behind him in the queue of traffic near the Jadriya bridge in central Baghdad.
The family believe their brother stopped when he saw the Americans and the driver behind, who was in a Daewoo saloon car, braked too late and shunted into the back of the Mercedes.
The US troops opened fire, the family say. They do not know the name of the unit involved, although the Iraqi soldier said in his statement it was ”Bravo 1094”.
The brothers went first to an American military base, then to an office in the Green Zone, and from there to an Iraqi government office. ”I have been running after this for eight months and they gave us nothing,” said Ali Hamid.
”I know he is dead and we can’t bring him back, but we want them to pay.” — Â