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Prisoners, guards killed in Baghdad prison shootout

Posted on: Wednesday, 28 December 2005, 08:14 CST

By Omar al-Ibadi and Lutfi Abu Oun

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Several Iraqi prison guards and detainees were killed in a shootout on Wednesday at a Baghdad high-security jail after at least one prisoner grabbed a weapon and opened fire, military officials and police sources said.

Military and police officials stood by sharply differing death tolls among the high-risk security detainees, however; the U.S. and Iraqi armies both said four inmates were killed and the U.S. military said five security personnel also died.

A U.S. soldier was among six people wounded.

A prison guard who said he witnessed the early morning bloodshed told Reuters he saw five prisoners and five staff killed after Iraqi prisoners managed to grab a Kalashnikov rifle while they were being taken out to clean the yard.

They freed several others -- including a Russian, a Saudi and a Tunisian Islamist guerrilla suspect -- and broke into the prison armory, sparking a gunbattle with Iraqi and U.S. troops.

Three headquarters sources at the Baghdad police and at the Interior Ministry, one of them a general, insisted, that initial accounts of at least 20 dead prisoners were accurate. A senior official at another ministry said eight detainees died.

A U.S. military spokesman said U.S. personnel were at the scene -- one was wounded-- and had counted the dead themselves; the figure of four dead prisoners was accurate, he said.

Officials put the number of prisoners held at the facility, a maximum security jail for high-risk inmates, at between 90 and 200. They were housed inside the sprawling Adala military base -- Camp Justice -- for added security, one senior Iraqi official said, adding that Iraqi army troops opened fire on the prisoners, who were supervised by Justice Ministry guards.

ARMOURY RAIDED

"Sixteen prisoners attempted to escape the facility after first storming the armory," the U.S. military said in a statement, adding the incident began about 8:15 a.m. (0515 GMT).

"A firefight ensued leaving four Iraqi prison guards, one interpreter and four prisoners dead. In addition, one U.S. soldier and five prisoners were injured during the attempted escape. All prisoners are accounted for."

Brigadier General Jaleel Khalaf, commander of the base in northern Baghdad's Kadhimiya area, told Reuters: "It wasn't an uprising but an unsuccessful escape attempt.

"Four prisoners were killed and a smaller number of guards working for the Justice Ministry ... The prison now is calm, and the investigation is ongoing."

A general officer in the Interior Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "About 20 prisoners were killed."

Medical staff at the nearby Kadhimiya hospital said they had seen the bodies of five security personnel from the camp.

The guard who said he was present, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a detainee grabbed a rifle from one guard who was distracted by a scuffle between a second prisoner and a colleague who was shackling his legs. One guard was shot dead, the other wounded. The detainees killed a second guard posted at the armoury and freed at least seven comrades, the witness said.

Prison conditions in Iraq have been a matter of controversy.

U.S. officials have expressed disquiet since the discovery by U.S. troops last month of dozens of abused Sunni Arab suspects in a secret bunker run by the Interior Ministry, which minority Sunnis accuse of running Shi'ite sectarian militias.

The U.S. military is holding some 14,000 Iraqi guerrilla suspects and commanders say they will not transfer them to Iraqi custody until they are sure of better standards.

U.S. troops were found to have abused prisoners in 2003 at Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison. In other incidents, U.S. troops have shot dead unarmed detainees during prison riots.

(Additional reporting by Faris al-Mehdawi, Aseel Kami and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: REUTERS

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