US to inspect Iraqi detention centres after abuse charges
BAGHDAD, Nov 16: The commander of US-led forces in Baghdad said on Wednesday that Iraqi detention centres would be inspected, following reports of prisoner abuse at a clandestine interior ministry lock-up in the capital.
The Islamic Party called for an international investigation into the abuse.
“We’re providing technical expertise” and “we intend to coordinate with the Iraqis and inspect any detention facility that we find out about,” US Brigadier-General William Webster told reporters.
“We will support their (Iraqi) committees’ investigations of all facilities,” he added, speaking of the two committees set up by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to investigate the Jadariyah scandal and all other detention facilities in the country.
“The prime minister and the minister of the interior have indicated to (US commander General George) Casey that they take the allegations and the evidence that they’ve seen so far very seriously,” Webster said.
“They have promised to conduct an investigation, with coalition help, to get to the bottom of what happened and how it happened and how to prevent it in the future,” he added.
The Islamic Party’s call for a probe follows revelations that some 170 detainees, mostly Sunni, were illegally held and tortured at a centre run by the Shia-dominated interior ministry.
Islamic Party spokesman Alaa Makki told AFP that party officials ‘insist on having an international investigation’ into the case.
“There have been similar cases in the past and investigations into them led to nothing,” according to another party spokesman, Ayad Samarrai.
“We want an international and impartial inquiry as we are beginning to think there are people high up in government who are responsible, or at least accomplice” to the abuse, Samarrai said.
The case came to light when US forces searched an interior ministry complex in south Baghdad late on Sunday where they found the detainees.
The search got underway after a Sunni family reported that their son, aged about 15, was being held in the Jadariyah facility, a senior US officer said on Wednesday.
“We went inside to see if the kid was there and found some things that seemed to be improper,” he said.
“We started looking deeper and we found some additional probable improprieties,” he said, adding that detainees on the premises ‘needed food, water and medical treatment’.
Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Kamal told CNN television that he saw “signs of physical abuse by brutal beating. One or two detainees were paralyzed. And some had their skin peeled off various parts of their body.”
The detainees “were given a medical examination by our medics. Some of them were taken temporarily to a hospital to be further treated,” the US officer said, adding that none required hospitalization.
“We saw no evidence of ‘killings’ there ... or torture chambers,” he added.
Some of the detainees reported being held ‘a long time’, according to US forces who did not find any trace of the missing 15-year-old.
“It was not clear who was running the facility,” the officer added.
There are suggestions that Shia-backed militias, sometimes operating as part of Iraq’s security forces, are responsible for some arrests and extra-judicial executions.
“It’s very difficult for us ... to ferret out the militia members from security elements,” the United States officer said.
The Islamic Party also called for Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani to publicly condemn the abuse.
“We call on the Grand Ayatollah to denounce the acts and repudiate those who carried them out,” party secretary-general Tarik Hashemi said.
The prisoners were ‘treated by their (Iraqi) brothers without mercy and without pity’, Hashemi said.
If the accusations are proven, the interior minister should be dismissed, Hashemi added.—AFP
