Iraq has freed Ali Musa Daqduq, a Hezbollah member who was accused of plotting to kill five US soldiers, and he has now left the country for Lebanon, a high-ranking official said on Friday. "The judiciary decided to release Ali Musa Daqduq due to a lack of sufficient evidence," the Iraqi official said on condition of anonymity, adding that Daqduq is now in Lebanon.
The official did not specify when he was released. Daqduq was captured in 2007 and held by American troops until he was handed over to Iraqi officials in December last year. At the time of Daqduq's capture, the United States accused Iranian special forces of using the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah to train Iraqi extremists.
The US military said the Quds Force, a unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and Hezbollah were jointly operating camps near Tehran at which they trained Iraqis before sending them back to carry out attacks in Iraq. It said Daqduq, captured in Iraq's southern city of Basra in March 2007, had confessed to training Iraqi extremists in Iran.