Muhammas Jabbari, the teacher who was handcuffed to a bed on which his dead wife was still lying, has refused to compromise on his case and rejected offers of tribal mediation.
The teacher’s case is still under investigation and a number of Kirkuk Police staff were put under arrest recently.
Muhammad Jabbari told KikrukNow: “I insist on my [legal] complaint. I am not willing to compromise. My lawyer’s efforts have led to the arrest of three policemen and an officer from Qoriya police station, who are sent to the Mosul Military Court.”
Last week, Qoriya police station staff protested the arrest of their colleagues in a gathering.
A well-informed source on the case told KirkukNow: “The security forces are trying to settle the case through tribal mediation to avoid tribal conflict, but the decision is in the hands of Muhammad’s family.”
On Friday (7 August), the commander of Kirkuk’s Joint Operations, Sa’d Harbiya, visited Muhammad Jabbari at his home.
Sa’d Harbiya expressed support for my case
Muhammad Jabbari said: “Sa’d Harbiya expressed support for my case and agreed to a request a request from us.”
Jabbari’s case starts on 12 July this year, when he gets into a quarrel with the staff of Kirkuk’s General Hospital (where his wife was being treated for COVID-19 infection) due to lack of oxygen, and subsequently breaks a ventilator.
He told KirkukNow that his wife’s condition and the fact that the hospital staff had taken an extra oxygen cylinder he had taken himself for his wife had made him furious and hysterical.
The next day Jabbari was handcuffed to the hospital bed on which his wife was lying. His wife dies later that day and Jabbari is left handcuffed to the bed with his wife’s body still on it.
Jabbari said that he had told Harbiya that Kirkuk’s General Hospital refuses to give a death certificate for his wife, and that Harbiya has promised him to make serious efforts to resolve that.
A short video footage of Jabbari being handcuffed to his wife’s bed was put online and went viral and that led to a committee being sent by the Interior Ministry to investigate the case.
Last month, Major General Ali Muttashir, deputy chief of Kirkuk Police, told KirkukNow: “The committee will thoroughly study the case of the teacher and the results of their investigation will be more clear soon.”
The incident triggered a few small protests by teachers and residents in Kirkuk.
Muhammad Jabbari is 43 years old. His 44-year-old wife was Muna Ismael, a government employee. They have two children.
