US to free 506 Iraqi prisoners from detention

Iraq’s US-led administration will release 506 prisoners from detention camps in a show of good will, while simultaneously offering bounties for 30 more Iraqis wanted in the anti-American insurgency, the top US official in Iraq said today.

Coalition officials said the releases – out of some 12,800 detainees – are also aimed at fostering intelligence tips, which they said have surged in the three weeks since the capture of Saddam Hussein.

Most to be released are suspected low-level “associates” of insurgents, and none has been directly involved in attacks, said senior coalition officials.

“I want to assure you that this is not a programme for those with bloodstained hands,” US Ambassador Paul Bremer told a Baghdad news conference.

“Nor will we release people accused of torture or crimes against humanity.”

Bremer said they would become “increasingly aggressive with the die-hards” but use “a carrot approach to those who are sitting on the fence”.

The release of Iraqis held indefinitely and without charge has been a top demand of the country’s community and tribal leaders, as well as human rights advocates.

“All they do is put a bag on their heads, bind their hands behind them with plastic handcuffs and take them away. Families don’t know where they go,” Malek Dohan al-Hassan, head of the Lawyers Syndicate in Baghdad, said last month.

Bremer described the release as a pardon for some Iraqis who worked against the US occupation.

“They made a mistake and they know it,” he said. “But we are prepared to offer some of them a new chance.”

Before they are freed, the prisoners must sign a statement renouncing violence and have a community or tribal leader accept responsibility for their conduct, Bremer said.

The first release is to take place on Thursday, when about 100 prisoners will be freed from the sprawling, Saddam-era Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad.

Further releases will take place in coming weeks from detention camps across Iraq.

Bremer said the US military would intensify its hunt for hard-line guerrillas, offering bounties for information leading to the capture or killing of 30 Iraqis accused in the insurgency.

The reward announcement broadens the practice of offering bounties for wanted fugitives.

Of the original 55 most wanted Iraqis whose pictures appeared on a deck of cards, 13 remain at large.