US ‘runs secret jails in Iraq’
Posted: 02 Nov 2006 @ 00:00
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL has backed the findings of a Christian peace group
that says it has evidence of a string of secret prisons run by the United
States across Iraq.
Prisoners "are often moved around the country. We have written to the US
secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, about this, but have so far had no
response," said a spokesman for Amnesty International, Steve Ballinger.
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) say that it has evidence of 18 prisons run
by US forces in Iraq, although the multinational forces usually refer only to
three — Abu Ghraib, Bucca Camp and Camp Cropper.
Two of CPT’s workers, Sheila Provencher and Cliff Kindy, revealed evidence
of the "secret" prison system after meeting Haji Ali, a staff worker with
Victims of American Prison Association, in Baghdad.
A British Defence spokesman in Basra, Squadron Leader Sean McFetrich, said
that British monitoring teams had no evidence of "deliberate detainee
mistreatment" in Bucca Camp, where the vast majority of UK detainees had
initially been held.
He also said that conditions within the British-run Divisional Temporary
Detention Facility at Shaibah, where UK detainees were currently sent, were
"fairly good".
Squadron Leader McFetrich said that the International Committee of the Red
Cross representatives had had full and unfettered access to UK detention
facilities "from the outset".
http://www.amnesty.org/