DUBAI, Nov 24: Dubai-based satellite television Al-Arabiya announced on Monday its Baghdad bureau had been closed by Iraqi police after the interim Governing Council banned it from working in Iraq for incitement to murder in broadcasting a Saddam Hussein tape calling for attacks on council members.

“Iraqi police entered the Al-Arabiya bureau armed with a decision from the interim Governing Council to close the bureau, seize the furniture and equipment until the channel gives a written commitment not to promote violence,” the channel’s Baghdad correspondent reported.

“We have decided to ban Al-Arabiya in Iraq for a certain period of time because it broadcast an invitation to murder, an incitement to murder by the voice of Saddam Hussein,” said the council’s current chairman Jalal Talabani. He said council members would also pursue a separate suit against the television through the Iraqi courts, the first here against a news organization since Saddam’s overthrow.

The television agreed to heed a ban on its reporting from Baghdad until legal action over its broadcast of the tape had been settled, the bureau chief told reporters.—AFP