Iraqi detainees at risk of torture after US handover

Baghdad, 13 Sept-(ANA)-Tens of thousands of detainees held without trial in Iraq, many of whom were recently transferred from US custody, remain at risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, Amnesty International said in a new report launched today.

The report details thousands of arbitrary detentions, sometimes for several years without charge or
trial, severe beatings of detainees, often in secret prisons, to obtain forced confessions, and enforced disappearances.

“Iraq’s security forces have been responsible for systematically violating

detainees’ rights and they have been permitted to do so with impunity,” said

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North

Africa.

Amnesty estimates that 30,000 detainees are held without trial in

Iraq although the Iraqi authorities have failed to provide precise figures.

Several detainees are known to have died in custody, apparently as a result of

torture or other ill-treatment by Iraqi interrogators and prison guards, who

regularly refuse to confirm their detention or whereabouts to relatives.

Riyadh Mohammad Saleh al-‘Uqaibi, 54 and married with children, died in custody

on 12 or 13 February 2010, as a result of internal bleeding having been beaten

so hard during interrogation that his ribs were broken and his liver damaged.

A former member of the Iraqi Special Forces, he was arrested in late September

2009 and held in a detention facility in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in

Baghdad, before being transferred to a secret prison at the old Muthanna

airport.

His body was handed over to his family several weeks later. The death

certificate gave his cause of death as “heart failure”. (ANA)

FA/ANA/13 September 2010----------

Baghdad, 13 Sept-(ANA)-Tens of thousands of detainees held without trial in Iraq, many of whom were recently transferred from US custody, remain at risk of torture and other forms of ill-treatment, Amnesty International said in a new report launched today.

The report details thousands of arbitrary detentions, sometimes for several years without charge or
trial, severe beatings of detainees, often in secret prisons, to obtain forced confessions, and enforced disappearances.

“Iraq’s security forces have been responsible for systematically violating

detainees’ rights and they have been permitted to do so with impunity,” said

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North

Africa.

Amnesty estimates that 30,000 detainees are held without trial in

Iraq although the Iraqi authorities have failed to provide precise figures.

Several detainees are known to have died in custody, apparently as a result of

torture or other ill-treatment by Iraqi interrogators and prison guards, who

regularly refuse to confirm their detention or whereabouts to relatives.

Riyadh Mohammad Saleh al-‘Uqaibi, 54 and married with children, died in custody

on 12 or 13 February 2010, as a result of internal bleeding having been beaten

so hard during interrogation that his ribs were broken and his liver damaged.

A former member of the Iraqi Special Forces, he was arrested in late September

2009 and held in a detention facility in the heavily-fortified Green Zone in

Baghdad, before being transferred to a secret prison at the old Muthanna

airport.

His body was handed over to his family several weeks later. The death

certificate gave his cause of death as “heart failure”. (ANA)

FA/ANA/13 September 2010----------