Home > Beheadings now routine for Iraqi pathologist
Wars and conflicts International Attack-Terrorism
By Michael Georgy
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The beheading of hostage Ken Bigley horrified the world. It sickened Iraq’s top pathologist too, but he is getting used to seeing severed heads.
"It was barbaric, but we see all kinds of things here in forensic pathology and beheadings are on the rise. It is the biggest trend by far. Iraq is totally out of control," Faik Bakr told Reuters at his morgue in Baghdad.
Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was beheaded with a knife on Thursday after his televised pleas for help riveted attention on foreign hostages in Iraq, where several have been decapitated.
Masked Islamic militants and guerrillas seeking to drive U.S. and other foreign troops out of Iraq may see themselves as warriors in a just cause. But after seeing more and more severed heads arrive at his morgue, Bakr has drawn other conclusions.
"They think they are heroes. But the only thing I can say is that they are abnormal, they are inhumane," said Bakr.
The militants usually make their blindfolded victims kneel before them as a statement is read justifying what is to come. The hostage is pushed to the floor for the final indignity.
"If the victim does not resist at all it would take about two or three minutes for them to cut the head off," said Bakr.
FROM HEART ATTACKS TO SEVERED HEADS
Many of the victims of Saddam Hussein were never brought to hospital.
In those long years of oppression, executions, wars and sanctions, the deaths Bakr dealt with were usually the more mundane results of heart attacks, disease and only the occasional shooting.
"I began my work 25 years ago. I saw maybe three beheadings (in the past). It is a rare way of killing in Iraq," said Bakr. "But now we get up to six beheading cases a month in our morgue alone."
Bakr, 54, has not dealt with the high-profile beheadings of foreigners that have grabbed the headlines.
He quietly goes to work at a medical complex where he examines the bodies of the many Iraqis who have been murdered after being kidnapped by criminals on the street.
More than 300 shooting victims are delivered to his morgue every month, compared to about 16 under Saddam’s iron grip.
"We don’t get to understand what happened or to investigate. We just see the bodies and the heads and we tag them if we can identify them," said Bakr.
Some bereaved families are left with no clue as the motive for a killing. A pharmacist was recently beheaded after being kidnapped on his way to work along with a colleague who was shot dead. No ransom was demanded and no political cause apparent.
But when Bakr teaches medical students forensic pathology these days, there are usually few doubts about the immediate physical cause of death.
Victims have often been beheaded, shot dead or blown apart in a country plagued by suicide bombings, kidnappings and crime.
"The lesson is very simple. Death is definitely increasing every day in Iraq," said Bakr.