Iraqi forces arrest five U.S. security contractors

By Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces detained five U.S. security contractors in connection with the killing of a fellow American contractor last month in Baghdad's Green Zone, an Iraqi government spokesman said on Sunday.

Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the five men were being held at an Iraqi police station in the capital's heavily-fortified central district while a joint Iraqi-U.S. committee investigated.

The detainees could become the first Americans to face local justice since a bilateral security pact came into force at the start of this year making U.S. contractors subject to Iraqi law.

"There are no formal charges against them so far, but they were detained because of the murder of the contractor last month," Khalaf told Reuters.

Citing an unnamed Iraqi official involved in the investigation, CNN said the men had been detained on Friday in a pre-dawn raid on their company's office in the Green Zone.

The murdered contractor, James Kitterman, was a 60-year-old Texan who owned a construction company operating in Iraq.

Kitterman was found bound, blindfolded and stabbed to death on May 22 in the heavily-fortified district.

Citing unnamed sources, CNN said the five men knew the victim and that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was involved in the probe into his death.