Baghdad –
Expectations of good news have rarely been higher in the poor Iraqi household of Karima Selman Methboub, whose son Ali is due in coming weeks to be released from prison after more than 1-1/2 years.

The widowed mother of eight children – whose Baghdad family dramas the Monitor has followed since 2002, when Saddam Hussein was still in control – has done everything in her power to bring home her son, who even police and court officials have told her was wrongly arrested during a joint US-Iraqi police raid on a coffee shop.

Ali’s saga began, according to what he’s told his family, with beatings, burnings, and torture to force a false confession of kidnapping and a killing – supposedly of a cousin, who is still very much alive. (The Monitor could not independently corroborate his account, but it has reported on the culture of abuse that persists in Iraqi prisons.) The saga has devolved into a less violent but endless game of uncertainty about when he might be released, says the family, first contacted by Ali on phones smuggled into the jail. Later, they were allowed visits.

The family has paid thousands of dollars in bribes to police and judicial officials, lawyers, and others who promised – fruitlessly – to speed his release. Gold from one daughter’s marriage and Methboub’s own thinning stock was sold.

“This is what I am praying for, that God will set him on the right path [to freedom],” says Methboub, her eyes tearing up at the thought of her oldest son still behind bars. “Everyone knows he is a poor young man, and innocent.”

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MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – For the second time in a year, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is being accused of sexual misconduct, with a police investigating him Saturday for an alleged assault at a nightclub in a Georgia college town.

Police in Milledgeville were examining the claim of a 20-year-old student, who told an officer that Roethlisberger sexually assaulted her early Friday. The police department had no plans to comment until at least Monday.

The case comes as Roethlisberger faces a lawsuit filed in July by a woman who says he raped her in 2008 at a Lake Tahoe hotel and casino, an allegation he strongly denies. Roethlisberger, who was not in custody, has not been criminally charged in either case and has claimed counter-damages in the lawsuit.

Still, to hear it on the airwaves in Pittsburgh, this latest situation seems to have shaken fans of the star quarterback, a man who has never hidden the fact he enjoys the nightlife. He has been spotted gambling in Las Vegas and is sometimes seen in public with small groups of friends and bodyguards.

The latest accusation came in downtown Milledgeville, about 85 miles southeast of Atlanta and about 30 miles south of the lake home the player owns. Roethlisberger, who turned 28 on Tuesday, and two or three friends went to Buffington’s bar earlier Thursday night to watch the University of Pittsburgh men’s college basketball game, said Paul Kurcikevicus, a 24-year-old college student.

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