Kurdistan airs confession by suspect in killing of Kurdish family in Baghdad

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Wednesday evening praised the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) in the autonomous region for arresting the main suspect in the killing of a Kurdish family of three one day earlier in central Baghdad.

“We express our deepest solidarity and sympathy with the families of the late Dara Raouf, who, along with his wife and daughter, were martyred at a brutal act in Baghdad.”

Kurdistan 24 has learned that Raouf was from Sulaimani and a retired public servant in the capital. His wife, Alia Rashid, was from Koya, in Erbil province, and formerly headed a department dealing with mosque affairs at the Sunni Endowment.

The couple's daughter, Sheelan Dara Raouf, was described by a relative to Kurdistan 24 as “a pharmacist in her twenties and an activist who helped injured demonstrators during the widespread protests in Baghdad.”

The CTD, which is part of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), announced shortly before that its forces had arrested the suspect in Erbil city center as he was attempting to secure a visa to travel abroad.  

“After obtaining information about the killer who murdered a Kurdish family consisting of two parents and their only daughter brutally in an apartment in the Mansour district of Baghdad, we discovered that the killer hid in Erbil city. After follow-up and monitoring, we were able to find his hiding place and arrest him through the Security (Asayish) Directorate of Erbil,” a statement from KRSC read.

The statement also highlighted that, following interrogation, the suspect confessed to the murders. The KRSC then published a video of him describing the details of how he committed the crime and escaped to Erbil afterwards.

According to the portions of the confessions made public, the suspect is named Mahdi Hussein Nasser Matar, born in 1984 in Baghdad's Hababiya district. He works as a security guard at the Russian embassy building in Baghdad and is employed by Iraq's Federal Ministry of Interior.

Matar, in his confession video, says that he was familiar with the family and visited the father, named Dara Raouf, in his house to ask him for a loan. After Raouf refused, Matar continued, he stabbed Raouf and then stabbed his wife as she rushed into the room.

“I took them both to the bathroom when their daughter Sheelan saw me. I tried to calm her down while she was screaming and I then hit her in the face twice. She fell and I suffocated her with a pillow. Afterward, I took a little more than 10,000 dollars, their phones, and the knife.” 

He continued, “I disposed of the phones and the knife in the Qanat area of Baghdad, then travelled to Erbil and stayed in a hotel. On the following day, I went out, attempting to get a visa to travel but I came back empty-handed and was then arrested by the security forces.”   

The second deputy speaker and dozens of Kurdish members of the Iraqi Parliament on Wednesday condemned the brutal killing after it was made public.

Read More: Kurdish lawmakers in Baghdad condemned the 'brutal' killing of a Kurdish family

In his statement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Barzani, who previously led the KRSC, added, “While we condemn this heinous crime in the strongest terms, we commend the security institutions in Erbil which managed to arrest the main criminal in a short period. Here, I warmly shake the hands of the heroes one by one, and we say to them: You are the source of our pride and honor.” 

Editing by John J. Catherine