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Red Cross Named Jail Before Alleged Killings by PM

Posted by Habibi (Guest) - Friday, July 23 2004, 4:18:36 (CEST) from - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0722-09.htm Published on Friday, July 23, 2004 by the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Red Cross Named Jail Before Alleged Killings by PM by Paul McGeough in Amman The International Committee of the Red Cross had urged an investigation of the brutal treatment of prisoners at the Baghdad prison where Iraq's new Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, is alleged to have executed as many as six suspected insurgents. The Red Cross request was made six months before the killings were said to have taken place at the maximum security Al-Amariyah police station prison. Almost a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, a report by the Red Cross to the US occupation forces named the station as one of six run by Iraqi authorities in Baghdad at which detainees were subjected to the same coercive interrogation tactics used on prisoners by the fallen regime. The report says that one group of prisoners "allegedly had water poured on their legs and [then] had electrical shocks administered to them with stripped tips of electrical wires". Others had shown scars that they said were from burns inflicted by cigarettes. Two informants who said they had witnessed the alleged executions last month confirmed that the practices - including the use of electrical shocks - were still used on detainees at Al-Amariyah. The Red Cross report, dated February this year, states: "During interrogation, the detaining authorities allegedly whipped [them] with cables on the back; kicked them in the lower parts of the body, including in the testicles; handcuffed and left them hanging from the iron bars of the cell windows or doors, in painful positions for several hours at a time." The detainees' allegations and a Red Cross demand for a thorough investigation and prosecutions under the Geneva conventions were included in a section of the organisation's report on prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail. But it was entirely overlooked because of the focus by the world's media on the role of US troops in the scandal. The Red Cross report is based on the testimony of Iraqis who passed into US custody after being detained by the Iraqi police. It now has no power to investigate the allegations because its right under international law to visit prisons in Iraq ceased when the US occupation ended with the June 28 handover of power to an appointed Iraqi government. Before the Red Cross, and other bodies like the United Nations Human Rights Commission and Human Rights Watch, can resume prison visits that might elicit information on the allegations against Dr Allawi they have to negotiate new protocols with the Allawi Government. And if an agreement was reached, the Red Cross would be required to report confidentially on any findings to the Baghdad Government. Its report on the Abu Ghraib scandal was leaked. The Red Cross has approached Baghdad, but there has been no clear indication if and when an agreement might be concluded. The Red Cross has had mixed success in reaching such agreements in the region. Israel and the Occupied Territories, Algeria, Jordan and Yemen allow them; but Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, Egypt and Tunisia have blocked them. The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said yesterday that he was unaware of any information to sustain murder allegations against Dr Allawi. "Anyone who actually talks to him will realise that he is a deeply humane person who had to flee his country along with millions of others because of Saddam," he said at his monthly news conference. Responding to a call by the former British foreign secretary Robin Cook for a Red Cross investigation of the Allawi allegations, revealed in the Herald last Saturday, the Geneva-based spokeswoman for the Red Cross, Antonella Notari, said: "We are not an investigative or prosecutorial body, but we do have an ambition to visit people deprived of their liberty by the Iraqi authorities." It is understood that references to human rights in the UN Security Council resolution under which sovereignty was returned to Iraqis give the Human Rights Commission more of an opening to operate in Iraq. But the agreement of the Iraqi authorities is supposedly required before any investigation. A spokesman for the Human Rights Commission, Jose Diaz, said the body was aware of the allegations against Dr Allawi but said there was no way it could check them independently. He said: "We note that the Iraqi Minister for Human Rights says he will investigate, and we look forward to the outcome of that inquiry." The Human Rights Minister, Bakhtiar Amin, said he would have the allegations investigated, but that he did not believe them. However, human rights experts are sceptical about the ability or determination of any arm of the Baghdad Government to investigate the allegations, which have been denied by Dr Allawi and by the Interior Minister, Falah Al-Naqib. They acknowledge conflicts of interest in a government investigating itself. The informants said that Mr Al-Naqib - who is responsible for the police - and about a dozen members of the police force were present at the executions; and they note an absence of sophisticated forensic skills across a fragile administration. One of the Herald informants who said he witnessed Dr Allawi using a pistol to kill six prisoners and wound a seventh at Al-Amariyah on or about the weekend of June 19-20, justified the killing, saying: "These criminals wanted to die because every day they had been beaten for two to eight hours to make them talk. "They were very happy to die because they had been beaten and tortured with electricity." The second informant said: "These killings were just like Saddam's days. They were more than Saddam because in his time problem prisoners were beaten up. Now we shoot them as well." The other five police stations named in the Red Cross report are: Al-Qana, Al-Jiran, Al-Hurriyyeh in Al-Doura, Al-Salhiyye and Al-Baiah. It says allegations compiled by its delegates were indicative of a widespread abuse of power and ill-treatment of prisoners by the Iraqi authorities. Prisoners said they had been threatened with being turned over to the US; others had been handed over on unfounded allegations. The report said that in early June last year a group of detainees was taken to the former police academy. "There they were allegedly hooded and cuffed and made to stand against a wall while a policeman placed his pistol against their heads and pulled the trigger in a mock execution. (The pistol was not loaded). "... The mother of one of the [detainees] was reportedly brought in and the policemen threatened to mistreat her." © Copyright 2004 The Sydney Morning Herald. --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: Red Cross Named Jail Before Alleged Killings by PM Habibi - Friday, July 23 2004, 4:18:36 (CEST) Re: Red Cross Named Jail Before Alleged Killings by PM parhad - 07/24 04:36

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