- Allegations that American soldiers routinely tortured
and maltreated detainees have emerged from a third Iraqi city, renewing
fears that abuse similar to that inflicted in Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad
has been systematic and widespread.
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- American soldiers in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul
beat and stripped detainees, threatened sexual abuse and forced them to
listen to loud western music, according to statements seen by the
Guardian.
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- Lawyers investigating the claims have sent details to
the Pentagon and the British Ministry of Defence and have demanded an
inquiry.
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- Though the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail
and in Basra has been well-documented, this is the first time claims of
abuse have been made from the north of the country.
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- Two statements have been taken from Iraqis detained in
Mosul and more are expected.
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- In one, an Iraqi lawyer says he was hooded and stripped
naked in a building known as the "disco".
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- Yasir Rubaii Saeed al-Qutaji describes how loud western
music was played and cold water poured over his body; he said he was also
threatened with sexual abuse.
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- "For the next 15 hours they tried to break me down
by taking me frequently inside and repeating the stripping, cold water
and loud music sequence," he says.
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- "Due to the very loud music," he adds,
"they
would talk to me via a loudspeaker that was placed next to my
ears."
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- The beatings did not leave a mark on his body because
his attackers wore special gloves, he says.
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- Mr al-Qutaji says he was a founder member of the Islamic
Organisation for Human Rights. He claims that other prisoners were treated
even worse. "Some were burnt with fire, others [had] bandaged broken
arms."
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- In a separate statement, Haitham Saeed al-Mallah, a
Mosul-born
engineering graduate says his house was raided by seven American soldiers
in January. "I was handcuffed and hooded and was then taken to an
unknown place which they call 'the disco', where they played very loud
music as one of their means of torture."
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- He adds: "They left me standing for hours,
handcuffed
and hooded, which made me quite disorientated. Then I was kicked very hard
on my stomach, which was followed by continuous beating with a stick and
with their boots until I fell unconscious. I only woke up after they poured
over my head very cold water, which caused me great suffering."
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- Mr al-Mallah says he was taken to a room where there
was a "group torture".
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- He adds: "I heard nothing but screaming and
suffering
of detained Iraqis. The usage of cold water along with beating seemed to
be a standard procedure. We were then asked to perform exhausting exercises
of squatting while they were playing extremely loud (and dirty)
music.
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- "Whoever fell to the ground out of exhaustion would
receive painful beating and cold water. We were prevented from going to
the toilets despite our pleas, which made many of us soil
ourselves".
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- He says detainees were allowed to sleep for about two
hours, after which the cycle of torture continued.
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- "The new thing this time was ordering us to shout,
'Long live the United States'. We were also made to shout obscenities
(sentences
that had the word 'fuck' in them)."
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- Mr al-Mallah says the next day, he saw "a young
man of 14 years of age bleeding from his anus and lying on the
floor.
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- "He was Kurdish and his name was Hama. I heard the
soldiers talking to each other about this guy, they mentioned that the
reason for this bleeding was inserting a metal object in his
anus."
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- Mr al-Qutaji, who was detained in March, says he and
other Iraqi lawyers have been unable to stop abuses because US forces have
been given immunity from prosecution.
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- He says Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition
Provisonal
Authority, dismissed 120 of Iraq's senior judges, 45 of them in Mosul,
on the grounds that they were supporters of Saddam's regime.
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- Phil Shiner, of the Birmingham-based law firm, Public
Interest Lawyers, is trying to get the cases raised in the British courts.
He is working with American lawyers to get them raised there.
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- "The British public needs to know the full
implications
of the decision to get into this war," he said.
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- A US army spokesman in Baghdad said yesterday that he
was surprised by the allegations, which would be investigated.
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- The MoD in London said it had not yet been made aware
of the allegations.
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004
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- http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/
- Story/0,2763,1304042,00.html
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