Iraqi committee to investigate prison abuse

A special committee set up by Iraq’s prime minister today began an investigation into allegations of widespread abuse and torture in Iraq’s prisons, which is threatening to become a major issue ahead of January 30 national elections.

The probe by an eight-member committee comes as Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government has been trying to contain a series of scandals involving human rights abuses in Iraqi prisons. It is the second such committee formed this month.

Mr al-Maliki made the decision last night to form the committee, composed of representatives from the ministries of interior, defence, human rights, justice and agencies such as national security and the judiciary, according to a spokesman.

It has two weeks to report back to him with its conclusion, according to Iraqi military spokesman Maj Gen Qassim al-Moussawi.

The move comes two days after Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said 43 police officers face charges after a committee formed by him found 23 cases of human rights abuses and 20 cases of inmates incarcerated without warrants. That investigation looked into 112 specific complaints.

Mr al-Maliki’s committee is expected to be more wide-ranging and will look at the entire prison system.

Politicians loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr – whose followers were rounded up in droves last year as part of a crackdown against militia fighters - have been pressuring the government over prison conditions. They have alleged that torture has been used to extract confessions.

The United Nations has also warned of overcrowding and “grave human rights violations” of detainees in Iraqi custody and called for thorough investigations of reports of mistreatment and torture.

Concern about abuse within the Iraqi judicial system has heightened as the United States slowly turns over control to the Iraqis of thousands of detainees under a new security pact that ends the US mission in Iraq by 2012.

In line with the agreement, the number of Iraqi detainees in US custody has dropped to 10,956 from a peak of 26,000 in 2007, the military has said.

The US prison in southern Iraq known as Camp Bucca is to close in mid-September, while another at the US base in Taji will be turned over to Iraqis early next year.

Camp Cropper, on the outskirts of Baghdad, will be the last US detention facility to be handed over to the Iraqis in August 2010.