Aged 33, Al Abdali worked as a salesman at the Shorja market in Baghdad. He was at home when a patrol of the Golden Brigade, a Special Force unit close to the Prime Minister's Office, broke in. The soldiers claimed that Al Abdali was wanted for possession of weapons, but they did not provide any arrest warrant. They searched the house and although they could not find any weapon, they arrested him and brought him to a secret location.

Despite the many steps undertaken to locate him, including contacting the Human Rights Ministry as well as the authorities of the Al Shaab International Stadium and of the Al Mutana Airport - two detention centres notorious for their use of torture - the authorities keep on denying his detention.

In light of this information, Alkarama and Al Wissam Humanitarian Assembly requested the urgent intervention of the CED with the Iraqi authorities to release Al Abdali immediately. As a State party to the Convention on Enforced Disappearance, Iraq must put an end to this practice, launch an impartial investigation on all reported cases of enforced disappearance and inform the victims' families about the whereabouts of their relatives. Concerned over the high number of cases recently documented in Iraq, Alkarama also recalls that the right not to be subjected to enforce disappearance is non-derogable, and that the current armed conflict cannot be used as a pretext to justify such human rights violations.

For more information or an interview, please contact the media team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (Dir: +41 22 734 1007 Ext: 810)