csua.org/u/e0y -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20051116/ts_nm/iraq_dc_7
The underground bunker, part of a fortified building near the ministry's Baghdad compound, was discovered by US troops during a search Sunday n ight in a development likely to fuel sectarian tensions ahead of Decembe r 15 parliamentary elections. Sunni insurgents were already expected to increase their attacks on US and Iraqi forces in the run-up to those elections. Inside the bunker troops found 173 malnourished and in some cases badly b eaten men and teenagers, some of whom showed signs of having been tortur ed, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said Tuesday as he ordered an investi gation. A Shi'ite militia suspected of involvement denied any ties to the facilit y, saying it was being blamed in an effort to discredit Shi'ites before elections.
Sunni politician Omar Hujail, of the Iraqi Islamic Party, said it was not the only place where Sunni Arabs were held and tortured. "We have been telling them for ages that there are people wearing the uniforms of the Interior Ministry raiding houses at night and arresting people, but ever ybody denied it."
United Nations and human rights organizations to denounce these violations and we call o n them to conduct a fair international investigation," he told a news co nference. The United States, some of whose forces have tortured detainees in Iraq, rejected the Sunni calls. "We have every reason to believe they (the Iraqis) can and will" hold a c redible investigation, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told report ers. "Under the present circumstances, with what we have now, we believe that what steps the Iraqi government have taken are effective and suffi cient."
Kofi Annan was deeply concerned to learn of the detainees' abuse and welcomed Jaafar i's decision to open an investigation. "The secretary-general also welcomes the prime minister's statement that such practices are completely contrary to Iraqi government policy," UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe said. "The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern about ongoing human rights violations in Iraq, and specifically the lack of due process for detainees and abuses against them."
CIA ran a secret prison system in Eastern Europe -- visited Baghdad Wednesday , but officials gave no details of his meeting with Jaafari. William Webster said US forces would help Iraq investigate th e abuse. "We intend to coordinate with the Iraqis and inspect any detent ion facility we find out about." MILITIA DENIAL Hadi al-Amery, who heads the Badr Organization, a militia group tightly a llied to SCIRI, a powerful Shi'ite Muslim political party in government, denied any link to the bunker.
Iran during the 1980s as the armed wing of SCIRI, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which fought against Saddam from exile. Since Saddam's fall, it has become a powerful political force. A deputy interior minister Tuesday condemned the abuse at the bunker as " totally unacceptable" and said he was shocked. Many Iraqis, particularly members of the Sunni Arab minority, accuse Badr and other militias linked to the government of infiltrating the police and security services. Mohammad Duham, head of a group that works to protect detainees and polit ical prisoners, said his organization had recorded testimony from many p risoners who were abused in the bunker and at other facilities over the past two years. "This is even worse than what was happening before (under Saddam)," Duham said. "A lot of torture implements were found in the bunker, like saws to cut people's limbs and also razors to peel the skin off people's bodi es." The government and the militias have repeatedly denied the accusations, a lthough in July this year, the government did admit that some of its new security forces were resorting to the same sort of torture and abuses a s were seen under Saddam. Sunni Arab insurgents have carried out a campaign of attacks against Shi' ites, thrusting Iraq toward sectarian strife, two-and-a-half years after Saddam's fall. NO REMORSE A guard at the bunker showed no remorse Wednesday over reports prisoners were abused, saying they were "terrorists." Seif Saad, 18, standing in a watchtower overseeing the windowless buildin g, described how security forces raided homes of the detained suspects o r snatched them from the streets. "We placed sacks on their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," Saad told Reuters. Badr's Amery said the raid appeared to have been carried out to give Sunn is a boost ahead of elections next month.
they want to cover up their crimes," he said, explaining why he thoug ht the raid happened. Last year, US troops were found to have physically abused and sexually humiliated detainees at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison on the western o utskirts of Baghdad.
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