Ali Karim's killer is in the custody of security forces, SMC confirms

Shafaq News/ The Security Media Cell (SMC) confirmed on Monday the apprehension of the killer of Ali Karim, the son of human rights activist Fatima al-Bahadli who was found dead after going missing for 24 hours in Basra on Sunday.

Earlier today, Tuesday, a source told Shafaq News Agency that security authorities managed to arrest a person involved in the killing of Ali Karim, whose mom serves as the chair of "al-Fardous Foundation" in Basra.

The source told Shafaq News Agency that the security authorities found the body of al-Bahadli's son, Karim, in al-Zubair district, west of Basra, 24 hours after his forced disappearance.

SMC said, "under the direct supervision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a unit from the intelligence agency of the Ministry of Interior, were able to arrest Ali Karim's killer."

SMC said that the operation was carried out in cooperation with the security authorities in the Kurdistan Region and the governor of Basra.

Member of the former Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) board, Ali al-Bayati, called on the international community to protect civilian activists in the Basra Governorate, south of Iraq, following the failure of security authorities to deter the assaults and assassinations against them.

In a statement to Shafaq News Agency earlier today, Sunday, Al-Bayati said, "homicides and abductions in Basra are a failure of the security and intelligence services and a sustainability of the phenomenon of Impunity."

"This phenomenon developed to practices that motivate more heinous crimes and further violation to human rights," he continued.

"As our demands to the government failed to prompt a serious investigation and the prosecution of the culprits, we call on the international community to pursue its humanitarian, moral, and legal duties toward human rights activists; who became, and their families, a target for the gangs and mobs that exploit the security failure," he said.