- 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.
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- "They think they are heroes. But the only thing
I can say is that they are abnormal, they are inhumane," said Bakr.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- FROM HEART ATTACKS TO SEVERED HEADS
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- Many of the victims of Saddam Hussein were never brought
to hospital.
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- 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.
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- "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."
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- Bakr, 54, has not dealt with the high-profile beheadings
of foreigners that have grabbed the headlines.
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- 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.
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- More than 300 shooting victims are delivered to his morgue
every month, compared to about 16 under Saddam's iron grip.
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- "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.
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- 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.
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- But when Bakr teaches medical students forensic pathology
these days, there are usually few doubts about the immediate physical cause
of death.
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- Victims have often been beheaded, shot dead or blown
apart in a country plagued by suicide bombings, kidnappings and crime.
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- "The lesson is very simple. Death is definitely
increasing every day in Iraq," said Bakr.
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- Copyright © 2004 Reuters Limited.
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