Even so, the Zuwiya robbery also demonstrated in some rickety way that Iraq’s young institutions, the judiciary, the news media and its increasingly democratic politics, make it difficult for even the country’s most powerful people to snap their fingers and make an embarrassing case go away.  As details emerged, the vice president and his party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the largest Shiite grouping, would suffer a public relations body blow, one that may well affect Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s ambitions to become the next prime minister in elections in January.  “I am sure Adel Abdul Mahdi was not involved,” said Ahmad Abdulhussein, a journalist threatened for an article he wrote on the case. “But the Iraqi people have to think, do they want a leader who has bodyguards who rob banks and kill?”  And, contrary to the state of affairs under Saddam Hussein, there was an open trial free for anyone to criticize — and they did — even if death sentences were handed down in only two and a half days.  “There has never been a case that happened this fast,” said Ghalib al-Rubaie, one of the lawyers for the accused.  The cold-blooded brutality of the crime, executing the helpless guards, made it a hard case to ignore.  Three days after the robbery, Interior Minister Jawad Bolani announced that the authorities had identified the criminals and recovered the money. He pointedly said that “influential parties” were involved in the crime.  The implication was obvious: that whoever did it had to be part of the security services — possibly those tied to Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s party. The whole area was under the control of a battalion of bodyguards from the Presidential Protection Brigade, assigned to guard Mr. Abdul Mahdi, his family and aides. The gang initially hid the money in a nearby house owned by his newspaper, apparently on the theory that no one would dare look there.  “We have intensive communications with some parties so they will hand over the people involved,” Mr. Bolani said.  Thus was set off an extraordinary scramble of accusation and self-protection, in which a grubby bank robbery intertwined itself with the heights of national and Shiite politics and the power of blood relations in this still highly tribal society.  Mr. Bolani, like Mr. Abdul Mahdi, has ambitions to be prime minister, and the next day his spokesman announced that the authorities had arrested three men — two of them named as the ringleaders — and expected to get all of the robbers.  Mr. Abdul Mahdi quickly sprang on the offensive. He said he spoke immediately after learning about the robbery to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who issued a statement saying that Mr. Abdul Mahdi had recovered the money but had not turned over all the criminals. Mr. Maliki narrowly beat Mr. Abdul Mahdi for the prime minister post in 2006 and intends to keep his job.  Mr. Abdul Mahdi also claimed credit, saying the law-abiding members of his bodyguard battalion had solved the case — and that Mr. Bolani was playing politics.  “This success in carrying out the duty to stop organized crime was ruined by nothing other than politicking,” his statement said.  Under pressure, the Interior Ministry issued a clarification, praising Mr. Abdul Mahdi for helping to apprehend the “gang of bodyguards.” He responded with thanks, but insisted that only one of the perpetrators belonged to his bodyguard detail. Later testimony in court, however, established that five of the nine who were eventually accused were indeed in Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s bodyguard battalion.  Four others have disappeared, and if the politics are murky, the chain of blame has turned out to be even more so.  The two men arrested as ringleaders were identified as Capt. Jafr Lazim and Lt. Amin Kareem, both part of Mr. Mahdi’s security and members of the elite Presidential Protection Brigade.  Both men, according to a police official who did not want to be named, and according to court testimony, are related to Col. Ali Lazim, head of the Joint Security Services headquarters in Karada, the neighborhood where the crime took place.  That body controls all Iraqi security services in its area. Colonel Lazim could not be reached for comment.  And by the time the to and fro between the politicians subsided, Captain Lazim and Lieutenant Kareem no longer appeared to be in custody.  One of Iraq’s most popular Web sites, Kitabat, which publishes commentaries on the news, claimed they were released as part of a deal between the vice president and the Interior Ministry. Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s office said they had fled the country. The Web site suggested that everyone wanted Captain Lazim out of the picture because of his powerful relations, and also out of fear that he would claim he was acting on behalf of Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s party to raise money for its coming political campaign.  In a court empty of the suspected organizers, members of the dead guards’ families reacted to the sight of the suspects who were present with rage, with the brother of one of the victims trying to leap into the prisoners’ dock to punch them, and the elderly mother of another spitting on them.  Two of the accused, Ahmad Khalaf Dhamad and Ali Aidan, were previously bank guards, according to testimony; one of them, Mr. Dhamad, was suspected of being the triggerman, along with Lieutenant Kareem.  “How could you; you slept with them and ate with them, how could you kill them?” the brother shouted.  Both guards claimed that they had confessed after torture at the hands of the brigadier general in charge of Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s battalion. The trial judges scoffed at that claim, noting that the gun used in the killings had been traced to them.  The sentences came only days after Amnesty International sharply criticized Iraq’s judiciary for handing down excessive numbers of death sentences. Amnesty said that more than 1,000 people are now on Iraq’s death row, many of them after secretive, swift trials often featuring torture.  Mr. Dhamad and Mr. Aidan had no lawyer to represent them, so at the end of the trial’s second day, the judge asked one of the other defense lawyers to sum up their case.  “Let justice take its course,” was all he said.  An article on Sept. 3, 2009, recounted the prosecution of a gang that robbed a Baghdad bank and killed eight bank guards in July 2009. The article reported that testimony at the trial “established” that five of the nine accused were in Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi’s bodyguard battalion. While it was undisputed that two of the nine accused were in his bodyguard battalion (one of whom was acquitted), the identities of the others remained a subject of dispute. Some evidence suggested that two were not security officials and that the others had worked in security in the neighborhood but were not assigned to Mr. Abdul Mahdi’s battalion at the time of the incident.  Similarly, the article reported that the gang “forgot about the security cameras” and “they forgot about sunrise, which came before they finished.” The article should have noted that there was evidence that the cameras were not operational at the time of the robbery and that the gang had escaped before dawn. Finally, the article misidentified one of the accused men, Ahmad Khalaf Dhamad, as Ahmed Khalid.  Steven Lee Myers and Muhammed al-Obaidi contributed reporting.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Bank Killings, Highs and Lows of Iraq Justice. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
A bank robbery has resonated for what it says about Iraq’s corruption and the uneven application of law.