New facility for Abu Ghraib prisoners to be ready soon

The American military said today that its new lockup near Baghdad airport to house security prisoners now held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison should be ready within three months.

Once the US moves prisoners to the new prison at Camp Cropper, a process that will take months, Abu Ghraib will be returned to Iraqi prison authorities, said Lt Col Barry Johnson, a US military spokesman in Baghdad.

Lt Col Kier-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for US military detainee operations, said completion of the new prison at Camp Cropper, where Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants have been held since their capture, would set the transfer in motion.

“We will transfer operations from Abu Ghraib to the new Camp Cropper once construction is completed there. No precise dates have been set, but the plan is to accomplish this (completion of construction) within the next two to three months,” Curry said.