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Iraq calls on US to hand over Iraqi detainees

Posted on: Thursday, 16 February 2006, 11:24 CST

By Waleed Mubder

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's human rights minister called on U.S.-led forces on Thursday to hand over all Iraqi inmates at U.S.-run prisons to the Iraqi government, a day after more damaging images of prisoner abuse emerged.

"We are very worried about the Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib," Zuhair al-Chalabi told Reuters. "The multinational forces and the British forces should hand them over to the (Iraqi) government."

"This is a very dangerous issue that the Iraqi government should review," said Chalabi, who was nominated as minister last year but whose appointment has not been ratified as the parliament elected in December has not yet convened.

"The Iraqi government should move immediately to have the prisons and the prisoners delivered to the ministry of justice."

U.S. forces are holding about 14,000 detainees at several detention centers around Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. Most of those detained have been rounded up on suspicion of planning or carrying out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces.

It was not immediately clear what weight -- if any -- Chalabi's words would carry.

It could be months before Iraqis get a new government, particularly as the appointment by the ruling Shi'ite Muslim bloc of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to retain his post has exposed splits within the main coalition.

Jaafari's office was more measured than Chalabi in condemning the new abuse images, broadcast on Wednesday an Australian television channel, calling them "a dangerous thing which contradicts completely with human rights laws."

He said such abuses "should not be repeated."

U.S. military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch said the new images, from among those taken by U.S. troops at Abu Ghraib in late 2003, were related to an isolated event and that those responsible had already been punished.

"When the pictures come back out now, it's a reflection on what happened before and not a reflection of what's happening now. We believe the people of Iraq understand that," he told reporters in Baghdad.

"SAVAGE CRIMES"

In the interview, Chalabi condemned the previously unpublished images as "major human rights violations" and compared them to abuses committed under dictatorships.

"These are major violations that turned to crimes. When you torture and hit in this brutal way it doesn't make any difference from the dictators' systems," he said.

President Jalal Talabani also strongly condemned the images, which come at a time when many Iraqis are already incensed by footage of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi teenagers in the south and the satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

"We have condemned these savage crimes. We reject that a civilized country allow its soldiers to commit these ugly and terrible crimes," Talabani told reporters.

"We demand very harsh punishments against the perpetrators."

Source: REUTERS

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