A suspected Hezbollah militant accused of masterminding the killing of Americans in Iraq has been cleared of all charges and will be freed, his lawyer said today, in an announcement that is likely to anger Washington.
Ali Mussa Daqduq was accused of training Iraqi militants and orchestrating a 2007 kidnapping attack that killed five US troops.
"The Iraqi judiciary decided to dismiss all the charges against him and release him without any conditions because there was a lack of evidence," his lawyer Abdulalmehdi al-Mutiri said by telephone.
Daqduq's case became a source of tension between Baghdad and Washington in the run-up to the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq in December.
US government officials originally sought to keep Daqduq in custody, saying they feared Iraqi authorities would be unable to hold him for long or convict him.
The US officials said they eventually agreed to hand him over to the Iraqi authorities after receiving assurances Daqduq would be tried for his crimes.
The US embassy in Baghdad did not immediately respond to requests for a reaction today. Daqduq's lawyer said the Iraqi government would decide whether he would be sent back to his native Lebanon after his release or handed over to his embassy in Baghdad.
Reuters