The protests began on October 1 over widespread unemployment, corruption and poor public services. Some 432 people have since been killed and more than 19,000 injured, according to the latest reports.

On October 31, Amnesty revealed that Serbian grenades were being deployed against the protesters.

“Since 25 October, the anti-riot [police] has not stopped launching tear gas and ‘smokers’ into the crowd, whether provoked or not,” the rights group quoted an Iraqi eyewitness as saying.

“It is continuous and random. … They are not using them to disperse, they are using them to kill. All the deaths in Baghdad have been from these canisters going inside the protesters’ bodies. They do not think about the fact that there are families and children in the crowds.”

In multiple cases, Amnesty reported, military-grade grenades manufactured in Serbia and Iran pierced the skulls of protesters and sometimes lodged in their heads.

Castner said Amnesty had verified 20 such deaths. “We monitored protests all around the world and we had not really seen injuries like this,” he said.

The tear gas canisters usually used by police around the world in controlling civil unrest are smaller and significantly lighter, Castner said.

The types identified in the Baghdad violence, however, are modeled on offensive military grenades designed for combat and are far more hazardous to protesters due to their weight and construction.

A typical 37mm police-style tear gas grenade weighs between 25 and 50 grams, and consists of several smaller canisters that separate and spread out over an area.

In contrast, the Serbian and Iranian 40mm military-style grenades identified in Baghdad consist of a single heavy slug and are between five and 10 times heavier, weighing 220 to 250 grams.

“As both the police and military grenades are fired with a similar muzzle velocity, meaning they travel through the air at the same speed, the grenades that weigh 10 times as much deliver 10 times the force when they strike a protester, causing horrific injuries,” Castner told BIRN.

Serbia’s Ministry of Trade confirmed to BIRN the origin of the grenades and said they were exported directly to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence in 2009. BIRN was unable to ascertain how many were sold.

The Iraqi government, however, said Iraqi authorities were not involved in the import of such weapons.

“The projectiles discovered in the heads and bodies of the demonstrators through examinations and autopsies at the forensic medicine’s department were not imported by the Iraqi government or any official Iraqi side,” Defence Minister Najah al-Shammari told the Nas news site.

Blaming an unspecified “third party”, al-Shammari said the grenades had “entered the country in a mysterious manner.”

Serbia has exported the same types of grenades to, among others, Montenegro, Belgium, Israel and Spain.

From Saddam’s bunkers to guns, mortars and helmets