BAGHDAD — Thaer al-Obeidi, who resides in the Baiji district in Salahuddin province in northern Iraq, was arrested by the Iraqi government forces, because he shares the same name as someone who is wanted by the authorities. Obeidi, who was released in May 2009, spent 19 months in several detention centers within and outside the province since his arrest in October 2007.

It took the security forces five months following his arrest to interrogate him, and he was incarcerated the entire time. He then waited for more than a year before appearing before the court, which decided to set him free because of a lack of evidence.

Just like Obeidi, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been arrested by the country's security forces for having similar names as those wanted or based on information provided by an informant. The latter has been a controversial issue, as they often provide false information, according to a statement by the Higher Judicial Council of Iraq on Nov. 24, 2014, after it revealed that 498 informants in Baghdad alone have been referred to the judiciary for providing false information.

The amended Iraqi Criminal Procedure Code of 1971 states, "If the complaint is in regard to offences against the internal or external security of the state, crimes of economic sabotage and other crimes punishable by death, life imprisonment or temporary imprisonment, and the informant asks to remain anonymous and not to be a witness, the judge has to register this with the notification in a special record prepared for this purpose and conduct the investigation according to the rules, considering the information included in the notification without mentioning the informant’s identity in the investigative paper.” Thus, the informant’s work is not bound to Iraqi security institutions, although the informant does receive a reward in return for the information he gives.