May 17, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424

LONDON, May 16: At least 20 Iraqi prisoners of war, including civilians, have accused British and US troops of torturing them, the international human rights group Amnesty International said on Friday.

“As of Wednesday we had interviewed 20 people,” Amnesty researcher Said Boumedouha told a London press conference, referring to prisoners of war who alleged they had been tortured by the US military in Nassiriyah and British forces around Basra.

When asked, the researcher insisted that torture was the correct word to use for the handling of the prisoners, many of whom may have been suspected of being members of Iraqi militia.

After returning from Amnesty’s first fact-finding mission in Iraq since 1993, Boumedouha said the alleged mistreatment included “beatings with fists, with feet, also with weapons.”

“In one case we are talking about electric shocks being used against a man and in others people are being beaten for the whole night and are still being kicked and their teeth broken, I think you would call that torture,” he said. The man claiming to have received electric shocks was believed to have been a Saudi who had entered the country from Syria during the war and was suspected of being a volunteer for Saddam Hussein.

Boumedouha acknowledged that Amnesty International had not presented any of the claims to British or US forces for any response.

“We still have people on the ground in Iraq and we will continue to gain testimonies,” he said.

Up to half of the 20 people interviewed, who were free at the time, were civilians and the rest military, Amnesty said.

Judit Arenas, an Amnesty media officer who accompanied Boumedouha on the four-week Iraq mission, highlighted the issue of mass graves and the fact that some 17,000 Iraqis are thought to have disappeared since 1979.—AFP