Iraqi minister: Torture allegations exaggerated

Iraq’s Shiite interior minister today accused critics of exaggerating reports of torture at a lockup seized by US troops, saying inmates included Shiites and Sunnis, and only a handful showed signs of abuse.

The minister, Bayn Jabr, suggested some critics were supporting the insurgency and trying to use the American embassy to pressure him for personal gain.

Detainees held at the Interior Ministry facility in the capital’s Jadriyah district included “dangerous terrorists”, including one man accused of building six car bombs.

A disabled prisoner held there was a Shiite hired by “Takfiris” – or Sunni religious extremists – to detonate a roadside bomb, he said.

Jabr appeared with senior commanders in an effort to defuse a crisis which welled on Tuesday after Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, under pressure from the Americans, announced that 173 detainees had been found by American soldiers at the Jadriyah facility.

Some appeared malnourished and showed signs of torture, he said. Most of the detainees were believed to be Sunni Arabs.