X. Witnesses to the Executions

The executions carried out near the al-Mahawil military base—at the site where the large mass grave was discovered in an open field in May 2003—were also witnessed by local farmers in the area. The farmers were threatened with death, and remained silent about the killings until the fall of the government of Saddam Hussein.

Sayyid Jabir Muhsin al-Husseini, a farmer who lives close to the mass grave site, described a month of almost daily executions that he witnessed from his home:

They started to bring groups of innocent people to this graveyard and began executing them here. Every day, those criminals started executing people at 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. They brought people here in buses—each group was between 120 and 150 people. They would bring three groups of this size each day.

Before they brought these people, they would bring a bulldozer to dig holes. Military members surrounded the area so no one would come near the place. When they brought the people, they pushed them into the holes with their hands tied and their eyes covered. When they pushed them into the holes, they would start shooting massively. Afterwards, they would bring the bulldozers to bury the people. Then the criminals would prepare for the second and third groups [of victims.] This operation lasted from March 7 until April 6, 1991.²⁷

His brother, Sayyid Hassan Muhsin al-`Ardawi, told Human Rights Watch how he also had watched the executions:

They used to bring people from al-Mahawil military base to this site. Their hands and eyes were bound. They would bring them here in Kuwaiti buses that carried about forty-five passengers and a Toyota Coaster bus that carried about twenty-one passengers. …

They brought a full army division and surrounded the area. Most [non-military at the site] were Ba’th party members, the others were from pro-government tribes. The military were in uniform, the Ba’th and the tribal people were in civilian clothes with red kaffiyas….

I heard the sound of the shooting and heard the executed people shout. I would hear this several times each day.

They used a bulldozer shovel to bury the graves—after they finished their work, they took it with them.…

I would go to the roof and watch the executions—when they shot them and buried them in the holes. They used to take them from the cars and push them inside the holes. Their hands were tied and their eyes covered, sometimes two people were bound together. They put them inside the holes. They used to hit them, they had no mercy. The victims were unable to do anything—they would just start to shoot at them. After they were killed, they buried them using the bulldozer shovels. Every day, they used to dig three holes. Those were the holes they would use for that day.²⁸

Shortly after the executions at al-Mahawil, the authorities expropriated the land of local farmers on which the mass grave was located and gave it to Qais Farwan al-Alwani, a member of the pro-government Albu Alwan tribe—according to many witnesses, members of the Albu Alwan tribe were directly involved in the arrest and execution campaign. Qais Farwan al-Alwani is currently believed to be in hiding inside Iraq. As noted above, Shaikh Muhammad Jawal Oneifis, the head of the Albu Alwan tribe, is currently in U.S. custody on suspicion of involvement in the executions.

The farmers who had witnessed the killings were regularly harassed, threatened, and arrested by Iraqi officials who accused them of trying to leak out information about the mass grave to the international community. On June 6, 1993, Iraqi officials arrested the entire farming community in the area, and took them to the police station in Iskandariyya city. There, Qais Farwan al-Alwani accused the farmers of digging up the mass grave and photographing the sites in order to smuggle out information to foreign journalists, but the men were ultimately released.