 |
| One detainee had been crippled by polio and others suffered "different wounds," the deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, said without elaboration. (Photo: Xinhua/AFP) |
BEIJING, Nov. 17 -- Iraq's prime minister said Tuesday that 173 Iraqi detainees ¡ª malnourished and showing signs of torture ¡ª were found at an Interior Ministry basement lockup seized by U.S. forces in Baghdad.
The discovery appeared to validate Sunni complaints of abuse by the Shiite-controlled ministry.
The revelation about the mostly Sunni Arab detainees by Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was deeply embarrassing to the government as critics in the United States and Britain question the U.S. strategy for building democracy in a land wracked by insurgency, terrorism and sectarian tension.
One detainee had been crippled by polio and others suffered "different wounds," the deputy interior minister, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, said without elaboration.
Sunni politicians have been complaining of torture, abuse and arbitrary arrest by special commandos of the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry since the current government took power last April.
Kamal, the deputy interior minister, was quoted by CNN as saying the skin of some of the detainees in the Baghdad center had peeled off parts of their bodies.
In a report Monday, the U.N. mission in Iraq warned about detention conditions in Iraq. The report said 23,394 people were in detention in Iraq, including 11,559 held by multinational forces.
In a separate report, two Iraqi businessmen, who were imprisoned by U.S. forces in Iraq, claimed Monday that American soldiers threw them into a cage of lions in a Baghdad palace, as part of a terrifying interrogation in 2003.
Sabbar, 37, and Sherzad Kamal Khalid, 35, are in the United States this week to talk about the lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First filed on their behalf against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other military officials.
(Source: Shenzhen Daily/Agencies)
| 
Breaking
News 
