- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Former Iraqi
human rights minister Abdel Basset Turki said US overseer Paul Bremer knew
in November that Iraqi prisoners were being abused in US detention centres.
-
- "In November I talked to Mr Bremer about human rights
violations in general and in jails in particular. He listened but there
was no answer. At the first meeting, I asked to be allowed to visit the
security prisoners, but I failed," Turki told AFP on Monday.
-
- "I told him the news. He didn't take care about
the information I gave him." The coalition had no immediate comment
about Turki's meeting with Bremer.
-
- The minister, whose resignation was formally accepted
by the coalition on Sunday, said he told Bremer about his meetings with
former detainees.
-
- "The prisoners I spoke to, they told me about how
Iraqi prisoners were left in the sun on US bases for hours, prevented to
pray and wash and left for two days on a chair and kicked at Abu Gharib,"
he said.
-
- That was a reference to the largest prison in the country,
located outside Baghdad, where a US Army enquiry found guards humiliated
detainees, forced them to strip naked and perform mock fellatio and other
sexual activities.
-
- Since January, 17 people have been implicated in the
scandal, including the general who ran the prison system in Iraq. Pictures
of the abuse obtained by media outlets last week have caused outrage around
the world.
-
- But Turki said he had not been aware of the activities
uncovered in the US Army probe when he met Bremer.
-
- That enquiry was initiated after a US soldier in the
prison stepped forward and informed the army's Criminal Investigation Division
some time after November 1.
-
- The top US commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo
Sanchez, then ordered a full criminal and administrative investigation
that led to the suspension of 17 soldiers and officers.
-
- A third investigation is now examining whether intelligence
officers or civilian contractors encouraged the abuse to weaken prisoners
ahead of interrorgations.
-
- Turki said he had also raised concerns about prisoner
abuse to the International Committee of the Red Cross, but they refused
to share information with him.
-
- Turki resigned from his post on April 8 in anger over
the US military offensives on Najaf and Fallujah and it was officially
accepted Sunday by the coalition, the human rights ministry said Monday.
-
- The US-dominated CPA has cited human rights as a motivating
factor in the invasion last spring to oust the authoritarian regime of
Saddam Hussein.
-
- The coalition demanded human rights protections be inserted
into the transitional law that is expected to govern Iraq until a permanent
constitution is drafted by the end of 2005.
-
- But the scenes of intense street fighting when US forces
assaulted Fallujah on April 5, in a hunt for insurgents who brutally murdered
four US contractors, triggered revulsion among pro-coalition Iraqis.
-
- Copyright © 2004 Agence France Presse. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of Agence France Presse.
-
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/iraq_us_politics_resignation
|
