The Asayish carried out an overnight raid in Sheikhan on Tuesday, targeting Shekho Kochar, a suspected drug trafficker. The district mayor said that the shooting occurred at around 11 pm after the armed suspect refused to surrender.
“We fell into their ambush. Their [vehicle] lights were off. When we got closer, they never spoke to him or told him to get off. They immediately bumped into our car and started shooting,” Layla Suleiman, the deceased suspect’s wife, told Rudaw on Wednesday.
Two Asayish personnel were also killed in the shooting, according to the mayor.
Suleiman slammed the operation and questioned the timing of the raid, claiming that the Asayish accidentally killed their own members during the shooting.
“If you see the car, anyone would wonder how this family survived. I led my family out to the open. My daughter is wounded, in front of my eyes, they wounded her. They killed my husband, the father of my children. I witnessed everything. What crimes have these young children committed?” she lamented.
His brother detailed the operation and said that there was no arrest warrant against Kochar.
“The Asayish forces shot him. They first bumped into his car from this side [driver's side],” said Abdulrahman Mahmood. “They could arrest him at any checkpoint. They could have issued an arrest warrant and told him to come in and surrender.”
Authorities and Sheikhan’s mayor said the man was wanted by security forces and had refused to surrender.
“It is not possible to give the opportunity to a criminal to walk freely when he is wanted by the security authorities, or to confront our forces. There will definitely be a response by us, no matter what the outcomes will be,” Duhok Asayish chief Zeravan Baroshki told Rudaw.
Kochar's father, Mahmood Omar Hussein, denies claims that his son opened fire at security forces when the events unfolded. “He has not fired back at the security forces. At that time, he did not have anything more than a pistol on him,” he said, adding that his son was a member of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and on their payroll.
Naif Ramazan and Shahyan Tahseen contributed to this report.
