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And then let go. According to a Newsweek article this may have happened.
Failed suicide bomber Ahmed Abdullah al-Shayea stated that Iraqi police had Zarqawi in their custody in October. Al-Shyea was picked up from a hospital after apparently being wounded in a suicide bomb attack, but it later discovered that al-Shayea was thrown from the truck he was driving when it blew up. Since then al-Shayea has been talking.
A video obtained by NEWSWEEK shows some of al-Shayea's half-whispered testimony, prompted by the commanding voice of an interrogator. He seems terrified, confused. Yet according to Brig. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, deputy minister of the Interior for intelligence affairs, the information he supplied offered startling insights into the relentless insurgency that has grown dramatically since U.S. troops toppled the statue of dictator Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003. Al-Shayea claimed the Iraqi police even had Zarqawi himself under arrest in Fallujah last October, but despite a $25 million reward--and perhaps not knowing whom they had--they let go the most ruthless and notorious killer in Iraq. (According to the deputy minister, security officials who have checked the circumstances now believe that may well be true.)
General Kamal says information supplied by al-Shayea helped Coalition forces round up several of Zarqawi's key lieutenants within a matter of days. Among them is Abu Umar al-Kurdi, real name Sami Muhammad Saeed al-Jafi, a terrorist demolition man who confessed to 32 car bombings over the last two years.
So they may have had Zarqawi. Unbelievable!
-mtfriend
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