BAGHDAD, Sept 13, (AFP): Iraq and the US military both disputed claims made by Amnesty International on Monday of torture and ill treatment in Iraqi prisons, saying the country’s jails abided by international standards.
The London-based human rights group had said in a report that tens of thousands of detainees were being held in Iraqi prisons without trial, and faced torture and mistreatment.
It also accused US forces of “abdicating any responsibility for their (detainees’) human rights” by handing over those in their custody without any guarantees against torture or other forms of poor treatment.
“All of the people arrested or held in our prisons are held according to arrest warrants and accusations against them,” Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim told AFP.
“There is no torture at all, and this international report is not true and it is baseless.”
Ibrahim’s remarks were referred only to prisons run by the justice ministry. Iraq’s fractured penal system means the ministries of interior and defence also run their own jails.
A US military spokesman, meanwhile, agreed with Ibrahim’s assessment.
“Detainees in the Iraqi judicial system are not ‘likely to face torture and ill-treatment,’” Lieutenant Colonel Bob Owen said in an email.
“The detainee facilities are inspected frequently and abide by the rule of law and international standards for detainee care and management.
“The ministry of justice is serving a valuable role here in Iraq. Detainees are fed, clothed, provided medicine and able to meet with family members. The US is not violating any international agreements in Iraq in respect to detainees.”
Amnesty had said in its report, published earlier on Monday, that an estimated 30,000 people were in Iraqi jails, and that several were known to have died in custody.
It also catalogued physical and psychological abuse against others, and said security forces in the autonomous region of Kurdistan were also at fault.
Iraq’s human rights minister and the spokesman for the Kurdistan regional government were not immediately available to comment on the report.
Amnesty’s 59-page report, entitled “New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful detentions and torture in Iraq,” lists several men it says were subjected to torture or who died in prison.
Among them was Riad Mohammed Saleh al-Oqaibi, arrested in September 2009 and held in a detention facility in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone before being transferred to a secret detention facility in the capital.
“During interrogation, he is said to have been beaten so hard on the chest that his ribs were broken and his liver damaged,” the report said. “He died on 12 or 13 February as a result of internal bleeding.”
According to the rights group, methods of torture used have included beatings with cables and hosepipes, breaking of limbs, piercing of the body with drills and psychological torture in the form of threats of rape.
Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela was so upset over Britain invading Iraq in 2003 that he called a government minister and “virtually breathed fire” about why it was a mistake, the ex-minister revealed Monday.
Peter Hain, who was secretary of state for Wales in Tony Blair’s Labour government at the time, recounts the phone call in his new biography of the former South African president and anti-apartheid icon, who is also a personal friend.
Speaking as the book was published, the Labour lawmaker recalled that Mandela “rang me up when I was a Cabinet minister in 2003, after the invasion” of Iraq by US and British troops.
“He said: ‘A big mistake Peter, a very big mistake. It is wrong. Why is Tony doing this after all his support for Africa? This will cause huge damage internationally’.
“I had never heard Nelson Mandela so angry and frustrated.
“He clearly felt very, very strongly that the decision that the prime minister had taken — and that I as a member of the Cabinet had been party to — was fundamentally wrong and he told me it would destroy all the good things that Tony Blair and we, as a government, had done in progressive policy terms across the world.”
Hain grew up in South Africa and his parents campaigned against the apartheid regime.
“I know Nelson Mandela quite well. He was virtually breathing fire down the phone on this and feeling a sense of betrayal. It was quite striking,” he said.
The comments were made in a formal call, Hain said, adding that he relayed Mandela’s sentiments to Blair.
He also tried to defend the conflict to Mandela, and Hain said that only history would judge “whether it was the right decision”.