After 17 years of the assassination of Christian MP Francis Yousif Shabo, the person accused of killing him walking around freely in Kurdistan Region

Ankawa.com – Hawlati
The Kurdish newspaper “Hawlati”, reported in its issue dated 3rd of June a news story which said the man accused of killing the Christian member of the first session of the parliament of Kurdistan, representing the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Francis Yousif Shabo who was assassinated in 1993, is walking around freely in Kurdistan region. The subject caused deep discontent for Shabo family and his party. The paper added, the head of the office of the Chairman of the Region is following the case and has requested the documents related to this matter from the Christian parliamentarians. The paper also referred to the refusal of Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa) to discuss the subject and to raise it now.
  The newspaper Hawlati referred to the document from the Directorate of Intelligence of the Baath regime which published in its issue number 133 dated 23rd July 2003. The document stated that Francis Yousif Shabo was assassinated on the 1st of June 1993 by the so called (Kh.T.H.) who was born in 1949 in the town of Sarsenk, was working with Iraqi military intelligence and was also head of a group of 5 people, they are: (O.M.), (T.H.H.), (M.S.), (A.M.M.) and (Kh.T.H.). The newspaper indicated that in spite of 17 years have passed since the assassination of Shabo, the case still forgotten and the killer walks freely in the Kurdistan region. According to Hawlati, Shabo family and his party are very upset because of the fact that the killers accused of his assassination are still free in the region dominated by Kurdistan Democratic Party and no efforts are made to bring the criminals to justice.
  The newspaper quoted what it called “informed source” saying that there are no any facilities to bring the case to court and that happens while the Region’s President asserts that the law is above everything.
  Hawlati showed that the document confirming that the killing of Shabo by the accused man (Kh.T.H.), and also confirming that this man and his group did several other terrorist acts for the Baath regime, of them, the bombing of Kurdistan Front headquarters in Dohuk on the 5th of January 1993 killing 3 people and wounding others and the attempted assassination of the U.S. citizen William Brown, that left him with critical injuries, on the 29th of January 1993, under the pretext of spreading Christianity in Dohuk.
  Shabo born in the town of Mangaish in 1951, completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Mosul and graduated with a degree of civil engineering in 1975. He occupied during his working career several successful administrations and engineering positions in Dohuk province and the most recent one was the Director of the Department of water and Sewerage.
  Shabo joins the ranks of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Zowaa, in 1991 and was elected as a member in the list of the Movement in the parliamentary elections for Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He became parliamentarian and was actively participating in the parliamentary committees, including the committee of Finance and Economic Affairs and the committee of Planning, Development and Statistics.

Presidium of the Region following up the subject
In the same context, Hawlati quoted the desire of the president of the presidium of the Region to follow up the case of the assassinated Christian parliamentarian Shabo and requested the documents associated with this case from the Christian parliamentarians.
  However, Hawlati said, according to an unnamed source, the presidency of the Region was unable to decide about the the other “files” and it seems there will be no result for this case also. The source said, according to the presidency of the Region, the problem is due to the fact that the submitted intelligent documents are copies and not the original.

The raise of the issue of the martyr Francis at the conference of the parliamentary union of Kurdistan
According to Hawlati, one of the Christian parliamentarians have asked in recent meeting of the conference of parliamentarians of Kurdistan to name the second conference of the union after the name of the martyr Francis Shabo as he was the first martyr of parliament in the Region. This request has not received any respond from the president of the union, Naamat Abdullah, who said, the naming is not the validity of the conference. Abdullah also said, bringing the suspected people to justice is the task of the president of the Region. He added in his talk to Hawlati, our duty is to defend the parliamentarians, but this parliamentarian was killed 15 years ago, i.e. before the foundation of our union. He added it seems that the martyr family of Shabo and his party did nothing for this case, but if they were, we in the parliament union conference would defend it now. He confirmed that it was needed from Shabo party the necessity of raising the issue at the parliamentary union this time.
  Hawlati continued, we contacted the Assyrian Democratic Movement but they refused to give any statement and asked not to raise the subject in this time.
  For reviewing Hawlati news story in Kurdish, click on the following link: http://83.169.12.202/K_Direje.aspx?Jimare=264&Besh=Witar&Cor=12