CPTnet
8 April 2006

IRAQ UPDATE: 8-22 March 2006

Wednesday, 8 March 2006

The team called Muslim clerics around Iraq, asking them, as part of Friday
prayers, to encourage anyone with information about Tom Fox, Jim Loney,
Harmeet Sooden and Norman Kember to come forward.

Thursday, 9 March 2006

A low level dust storm blanketed Baghdad.

Allen Slater and Peggy Gish spent the night Baladiat, because the
Palestinians who live there were expecting mass arrests of Palestinian men.
A team friend who lives there said that at least 150 Palestinian men have
been killed and 200 detained in Baghdad since the invasion in 2003.

Friday, 10 March 2006

For the first time in three weeks, Friday passed without a curfew.

A team friend dropped by to say goodbye to Beth Pyles and Allen Slater. He
soundly defeated Pyles in several games of dominoes.

Pyles went to visit with the Palestinians in Baladiat in the afternoon.

At 8:45 p.m., the team received a call that a body, probably that of Tom
Fox, had been found along the airport road. The general description of the
body was male, six feet tall, 150 to 160 lbs., brown hair, between the ages
of thirty-five and fifty. Iraqi police found the body this morning.

The U.S. Embassy first told the team it did not know if the body was still
in Iraq, and later told the team the body had already left on military
transport, and would arrive in Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for positive
identification on Sunday. The earliest positive identification of the body
would be Tuesday.

Team members worked all night trying to find more information about the
body. Neither the U.S. Embassy nor the Canadian Consulate here in Baghdad
was willing to share any evidence they had, such as the photos of the body
from which they made the initial identification.

Doug Pritchard, CPT Iraq project coordinator in North America, called at
2:00 a.m. to tell the team that fingerprints showed that the body was Fox's.
He said he was arranging for CPTers to meet the body as it arrives at Dover
Air Force Base.

Saturday, 11 March 2006

A team friend called at 9:10 a.m. to say Fox's story was running on Al
Jazeera television.

The team learned that Fox's body has not left Iraq. After team members told
reporters that U.S. Officials would not let a team member accompany Fox's
body home, a representative of the U.S. Embassy called to say that she was
able to arrange for Pyles to accompany the remains to the U.S., but Pyles
would have to come immediately. Pyles left within twenty minutes.

Members of two different Iraqi human rights organizations met at the CPT
apartment to discuss the prison situation in Iraq. The team gave each of
them contact lists of other human rights organizations who also work on this
issue.

Two Palestinians from Baladiat met with a representative of the Muslim Peace
Task Force (MPT) at the CPT apartment regarding Palestinians leaving Iraq.
The MPTer said that he and his organization want to help them. He advised
them to wait to leave Iraq until the new government took power. In the
meantime, he said, they should contact other human rights groups to advocate
for them.

The Palestinians continued to ask CPT to accompany them to the Jordanian
border. Gish and Pyles explained the difficulty CPT would have right now in
accompanying them, due to Fox's death and the size of the team.

Team members called Iraqi friends to let them know of Tom's death and the
upcoming memorial service at St. Raphael's Church at the 5:00 p.m. mass that
Sunday.

Maxine Nash and a team friend purchased flowers for the memorial service.
They had a large portrait of Tom made.

At 9:21 p.m. the team was still uncertain as to whether Pyles made it onto
the plane.

Slater spoke with CBC and Global TV. Richard Boudreaux of the L.A. Times
interviewed Anita David and Peggy Gish. Newsweek magazine and several other
reporters interviewed Maxine Nash.

Sunday, 12 March 2006

Very little electricity was available for the previous twenty-four hours.

A U.S. Embassy representative called to say that the Embassy had managed to
get Pyles from the Green Zone in Baghdad to the U.S. military base in Balad,
Iraq by helicopter. Once she was there, the military refused to let Pyles
accompany Fox's body home. Team members felt as though Fox was being
kidnapped again, this time by the U.S. military. They made more calls to
try to change the decision.

The team held a memorial service for Tom at the 5:00 mass at St. Raphael's
Church. About fifty people attended. Slater, Nash and Gish read from Fox's
writings. Gish led in the hymn. Father Vincent called for an end to the
violence against Jim Loney, Norman Kember and Harmeet Sooden, and an end to
all the violence in Iraq. He referred to the one God they worshipped--no
matter if the name is God or Allah. Christian and Muslim friends attended
the service. The Dominican sisters offered hospitality to guests after the
service.

By late evening, the team learned that Pyles was not permitted to accompany
Fox's body to the United States. Pyles spent the night in Balad.

Monday, 13 March 2006

Pritchard called to say Tom's body left Balad, Iraq at 6:00 a.m. It would
arrive in Dover at 1:00 a.m. Tuesday morning. Pyles saw his casket, draped
in a U.S. flag, loaded into the plane. Pyles learned that the bodies of
Iraqi detainees who die in U.S. custody are also sent to Dover, and then
returned to Iraq. In the plane with Tom was one such Iraqi detainee who
died in custody. As they prepared to leave, Pyles offered a reading for Tom
from 1 John, "Light overcame darkness." For the Iraqi, she said "Allahu
Akbar,"and she read a passage from Job, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh
away, blessed be the name of the Lord." She told the team it was a bright,
clear dawn and Venus, the morning star, was in the sky as the plane left.
Soldiers around the plane saluted as the doors closed.

Pritchard reported that CPTers would be keeping vigil at Dover Air Force
base until Fox's body arrives.

Nash talked with a reporter friend to find out how news sources in Iraq get
their information from Iraqi police and if it's reliable. The friend said
usually news agencies make numerous phone calls each day to the police to
follow stories and get details, and that the agencies usually have good
relationships with the police. Nash noted that Western government officials
had not been very forthcoming with information about Fox, and that the tea