BAGHDAD - -Iraqi security forces arrested five U.S. contractors suspected of playing a role in last month's slaying of an American in Baghdad's Green Zone, Iraqi security officials said Sunday.
The suspects could face charges in an Iraqi court, which would make them the first Americans to stand trial before the Iraqi judiciary since the U.S. and Iraqi governments signed a bilateral security agreement late last year that in part allowed for such cases.
Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, head of the Interior Ministry's intelligence service, said the men had been taken into custody and were being held for questioning in connection with the death of Jim Kitterman inside the sealed-off enclave, home to the Iraqi government and embassies.
"An investigation unit at the Interior Ministry investigated the murder and reached the conclusion that the Americans who worked with him (the victim) ... are suspected of killing him," Kamal said. "These people are under arrest and will be interrogated according to a judicial order."
Kamal declined to say how many suspects were being held, but an Iraqi government spokesman told Reuters news agency that five U.S. nationals had been arrested.
Kitterman, a 60-year-old Texan who owned a construction company, was found dead May 22 in the Green Zone. He reportedly had been stabbed, blindfolded, bound and left inside his car.
A family member of two of the suspects insisted that the men were innocent and would be released soon. Four of the men worked for Corporate Training Unlimited, or CTU, including the company's founder Donald Feeney Jr., 55, and his son Donald Feeney III, 31, said Feeney Jr.'s son John Feeney, 29. A fifth man who lived on their compound was also taken into custody, the younger Feeney said.
He spoke by telephone from North Carolina, where CTU has its U.S. headquarters.
"We're pretty positive that ... they'll be released in a couple of days," Feeney said.
The five men were arrested Friday morning when about 40 Iraqi security officers, accompanied by Americans in civilian clothes surrounded the CTU compound, Feeney said. He added that his father was not in the country and his brother and two of the other men were at a U.S. Embassy party at the time of Kitterman's death.
He described his father, a Special Forces veteran, and Kitterman as good friends. At one time, Kitterman had lived at the CTU compound, he added.
