WASHINGTON, Oct 26: A new legal opinion by the US government bars some non-Iraqi prisoners captured in Iraq from the internationally accepted protections of the Geneva Conventions, The New York Times said on Tuesday.

The consensus reached since March 2004 by lawyers from the departments of state, justice and defence, the National Security Council and other US government agencies lets the Central Intelligence Agency treat some prisoners the same way as members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban captured in Afghanistan.

The new legal opinion was outlined to the NYT by unidentified government officials in response to a Washington Post report on Sunday on the CIA's secret transferral of detainees out of Iraq for interrogation purposes.

The WP said the CIA had requested and gotten a US Justice Department draft memorandum justifying the practice dated March 19, 2004.

Officials told the Times that all prisoners transferred out of Iraq had been moved between April 2003 and March 2004, adding that none had been transferred six months ago.-AFP