MOSUL, Iraq — A police investigation of two of their own in the killing of an American soldier and his interpreter is seen as a test of Mosul’s police force — the weakest link among Iraqi security forces about to take the lead in protecting the country’s most violent city.
This city of 1.6 million people has long distrusted its police.
The two policemen — an officer and a sergeant — were arrested last week by U.S. and Iraqi forces and handed over to Iraqi custody, according to Col. Gary Volesky, commander of U.S. troops in the province that includes Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.
They allegedly fired on a U.S. patrol Feb. 24, killing Lt. William Emmert of Lincoln, Tenn., and his interpreter and wounding five others.
During a recent meeting, a Mosul police commander told Volesky the two suspects had not appeared before a judge — the first step toward prosecution — because of doubts not only that they were the gunmen, but that they were policemen at all.
Volesky wasn’t buying it, saying the men’s relatives had identified them.
Questions about the professionalism of Mosul’s police force are becoming more urgent because of the June 30 deadline for American combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi.
by the associated press
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