Imad Sarsam

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Dr. Imad Matti Sarsam (also transliterated: Emad) was a highly reputed Iraqi orthopaedic surgeon, teaching at the Department of Orthopedics in Baghdad University and as assistant professor at the Baghdad Medical College, who was assassinated on August 31, 2004, just three months after his participation in an international conference of shoulder and elbow surgeons in Washington, D.C..

His qualifications included FRCS (UK), D.Sc (Ortho.) and M.B.Ch.B.

[edit] Circumstances of death

As reported on November 1, 2004 on al-iraqi.org, Imad Sarsam was killed without any obvious motive:

He just left his surgery with his Assistant when a few men approached him, he offered to give them his bag (which had money in it) and his car but they said they did not want it. They asked him to take a walk with them, took a few steps away from his car and assistant and then they shot shot him and fled. We don't know what happened to his Assistant or what the motive behind the murder is.

Earlier, in April 2003, the BBC had published comments by Imad Sarsam critical of both the US occupation of Iraq and of the former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, stating,

The Americans have to make sure the one after him [Saddam Hussein] is a better one. ... It is not enough just to get rid of Saddam Hussein. The Americans have to make sure the one after him is a better one. If he's going to be as bad as Saddam, we've only traded a donkey for a donkey.

The BBC stated that Sarsam had fled to Mosul from Baghdad for his safety.