Iraqi PM: Malnourished detainees appeared to have been tortured

More than 150 malnourished Iraqi detainees found at an Interior Ministry detention centre appeared to have been tortured, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said today.

He said an investigation had been launched. Al-Jaafari’s comments came a day after an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said an investigation would be opened into allegations that Interior Ministry officers tortured suspects detained in connection with the country’s insurgency.

“I was informed that there were 173 detainees held at an Interior Ministry prison and they appear to be malnourished. There is also some talk that they were subjected to some kind of torture,” al-Jaafari said.

The prime minister did not say where the prison was located, but Major General Hussein Kamal, the Interior Ministry’s under-secretary for security, said it was in the basement of a building in Baghdad’s Jadriyah neighbourhood.