On May 20, 2006, he was arrested by United States (US) forces, and later on in that same year he was sentenced to death by a court in Baghdad for his alleged involvement in the bombing of one of Shi'a's holiest sites al-Askari shrine, in the city of Samarra, and the killing of a journalist from Al-Arabiya channel, Atwar Bahjat. The bombing lit the flame for sectarian violence between the Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq.