IRAQ: Sunni politicans demand international investigation into abused prisoners found in Baghdad bunker

Record ID: 334705

  • Title: IRAQ: Sunni politicans demand international investigation into abused prisoners found in Baghdad bunker
  • Date: 16th November 2005
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE)(Arabic), OWNER OF A SHOP IN THE AREA , KHUDIER, SAYING: "A bomb went off here, damaging shops and shattering the glass of the windows. Three people were wounded and one child was killed in the blast."
  • Embargoed: 1st December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAB4MHWHW9AEIMYMQWF78KV4FW0
  • Story Text: A bomb killed a 10-year old child and wounded three other people in Baghdad on Wednesday (November 16). The real target of the attack was not immediately known, but the insurgents often target Iraqi security forces, whom they see as allied to U.S.-led forces and dismiss them as collaborators.
    Meanwhile, Iraq's influential Sunni Muslim group condemned on Wednesday (November 16) the abuse of prisoners, calling for an international investigation to punish those who are involved in the abuse of 170 prisoners found locked in an Interior Ministry bunker in Baghdad. Iraq is investigating allegations of abuse after the prisoners were found on Sunday night (November 13), many of them beaten and malnourished and some apparently tortured, during a raid by U.S. troops who were searching for a missing teenage boy.
    They were found in an underground cell near an Interior Ministry compound in Jadriya, a central Baghdad neighbourhood, Iraqi officials and U.S. military sources said.
    "The U.S. forces, which raided on November 13 the Jadriya bunker that belongs to the Ministry of Interior have discovered this ugly massacre and found about 200 detainees who have no arrest papers and for no specific charge. Some of those detainees have died because of the severe torture and all of them were Sunnis and belong to different social sectors. We have information that this is not the only place where detainees have been tortured," said Omar Hajeel, in charge of human rights in the Iraqi Islamic party, at a news conference in Baghdad. Earlier a deputy interior minister put the number of prisoners at 161 and said he was stunned by their treatment.
    He said the detainees had all originally been detained with arrest warrants but didn't say when. They had now been moved to another facility and were receiving medical help. It was not clear why they were arrested initially. Most detainees are suspected of supporting the Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government. "The Iraqi Islamic party called upon the United Nations organisation, Islamic conference organisation, the Arab League and human rights organisations all over the world to condemn the flagrant violation to human rights in which the current government has a big role, and calls for fair international investigation as a result of which those who are involved will be punished," Hajeel said.
    Iraq's Sunni Arab minority has accused militias linked to the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry and Shi'ite political parties of rounding up Sunnis in raids and holding them without charge. The government has denied the accusations. Deputy interior minister said Jaafari, a Shi'ite, ordered an investigation into the case of the prisoners in the bunker, to be led by the deputy prime minister, a Kurd. Tareq al-Hashimi, Secretary General of the Iraqi Islamic Party said the current Iraqi government is deeply involved.
    "There should be a complete control of the security units that belong to the Ministry of Interior, in order to prevent them from following such practices as have been witnessed on the streets of Iraq in the recent days. These mass arrests that took place in the curfew hours - raids and random arrests - should be immediately stopped on both sides - the Ministry of Interior and the occupation forces - until the end of the investigation and the proof of who was involved in the Jadriya bunker," al-Hashimi added.
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