- Title: IRAQ: IRAQI PRISONERS RELEASED FROM ABU GHRAID PRISON CLAIM THEY WERE TORTURED.
- Date: 28th May 2004
- Summary: (W3) ABU GHRAIB, IRAQ (MAY 28, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. LV/CU: BUSES WITH RELEASED PRISONERS TRAVELLING ALONG ROAD UNDER U.S. MILITARY ESCORT; CLOSE-UP OF RELEASED PRISONERS WAVING FROM BUS (2 SHOTS) 0.17 2. GV/PAN: CROWD OF CHEERING PEOPLE WAVING TO RELEASED PRISONERS 0.29 (W4) ABU GHRAIB, IRAQ (MAY 28, 2004) (REUTERS) 3. GV/PAN/MV: RELEASED PRISONERS WALKING FROM ABU GHRAIB PRISON FOLLOWED BY SOLDIERS; RELEASED PRISONERS FILING OUT OF PRISON (2 SHOTS) 0.47 4. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED RELEASED PRISONER SAYING: "I was here for 9 months. They accused me of being with the resistance. They tortured me in a way you can't imagine." 1.00 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED MAN WHO SAYS HIS SON HAS DISAPPEARED, SAYING: "He was arrested one year and one month ago. I haven't seen him since then. They took him because he was a soldier and now I don't know where he is." 1.10 6. MCU: MEN HUGGING 1.15 7. MV/PAN/GV: MORE OF BUSES CARRYING PRISONERS (4 SHOTS) 1.41 (W5) BAQUBA, IRAQ (MAY 28, 2004) (REUTERS) 9. GV: RELEASED PRISONERS ARRIVING IN BAQUBA 1.46 9. GV/MV/CU: WOMAN RUNNING UP TO RELEASED MAN AND HUGGING HIM; RELATIVES SHOOTING IN THE AIR WHEN TWO BROTHERS LUAI ABDULKARIM AND RAAD ABDULKARIM ARRIVING TO THEIR HOUSE; RAAD ABDULKARIM KISSING HIS MOTHER OUTSIDE HIS HOUSE; RAAD KISSING RELATIVES; LUAI, WITH GREEN TOWEL ON HIS HEAD, KISSING A BABY (4 SHOTS) 2.23 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LUAI ABDULKARIM, ONE OF FIVE BROTHERS RELEASED FROM ABU GHRAIB SAYING "They arrested me and my four brothers on the 1st of January and put us in Saad Camp. They tortured us and we did not sleep for three days." 2.40 11. MV/CU: FAMILY AND DETAINEES DANCING TO THE MUSIC; LUAI CARRIED BY HIS RELATIVE DANCING WITH SMALL CHILD; RELATIVES AT ENTRANCE OF THE HOME, WOMEN CLAPPING AN ULLULATING; BAND PLAYING; WOMEN DANCING (5 SHOTS) 3.14 12. GV: EXTERIOR OF THE HOUSE 3.19 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 12th June 2004 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: ABU GHRAIB AND BAQUBA, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Reuters ID: LVARXXBFHL72WPV8NLGUNLBSL49
- Story Text: Prisoners released from Baghdad's notorious Abu
Ghraib prison claim they were tortured.
The U.S. military released several hundred prisoners
from Abu Ghraib on Friday (May 28), keen to show it is
improving conditions at the jail where images of U.S.
soldiers abusing prisoners have sparked international
outrage.
There have been several prisoner releases in the weeks
since the prisoner-abuse scandal broke, but Friday's
appeared to be the largest to date, with up to 600
prisoners being set free.
The newly appointed head of the prison, Major General
Geoffrey Miller, has pledged to half the number of Abu
Ghraib detainees by the time U.S. authorities hand power
back to an Iraqi government on June 30, reducing the number
to around 2,000.
Several busloads were driven out of the prison on
Friday, leaving a place once notorious for torture and
abuse under Saddam Hussein and now notorious again under
U.S. administration.
The military said earlier in May that recent releases
were part of a months-old programme to cut numbers and not
linked to the prisoner-abuse scandal, in which around 20
Iraqi detainees were systematically beaten and abused by
their U.S. jailers.
"I was here for nine months. They accused me of being
with the resistance. They tortured me in a way you can't
imagine," said one detainee who had just been released but
did not want to give his name.
Most of those detained in Iraq have been arrested for
"anti-coalition activities" and are generally held for
anywhere up to six months, or until the U.S. military says
it is convinced that they are no longer a security threat.
One man said his son, who was a soldier in the Iraqi
army, was arrested during the war and that he has not heard
from him since then.
"He was arrested one year and one month ago. I haven't
seen him since then. They took him because he was a soldier
and now I don't know where he is," he said.
About 11,000 Iraqis are being held in U.S.-run prisons
throughout Iraq, with the largest number - around 3,800 in
mid-May - at Abu Ghraib. When the reported prisoner abuse
was going on last October and November, there were more
than 8,000 detainees at the prison, contributing to
overcrowding.
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