September 2, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 4, 1424

BELFAST, Sept 1: A human rights law firm in Belfast said on Monday it was supporting the families of Iraqi civilians shot dead by the US military in a planned multimillion dollar law suit.

Madden & Finucane, set up by a high-profile Catholic human rights lawyer who was later murdered by Protestant guerrillas, said plans were at an early stage to mount a 15 million dollar legal challenge in US courts.

Solicitor Richie MacRitchie, recently back from a fact-finding mission to Iraq, said he had compiled a report into the deaths of four members of the al-Kawas family at a Baghdad checkpoint in early August.

US troops opened fire on a car which failed to slow down at the checkpoint manned by soldiers from the US First Armoured Division. A car carrying the al-Kawas family was also riddled with bullets.

“To a great extent there seems to be complete impunity for American soldiers in Iraq and no accountability at all for the victims’ families,” MacRitchie told Reuters.

“There is no process for independent and full investigations of state killings in Northern Ireland and it’s also severely lacking in Iraq,” he said. —Reuters