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| U.S. closes makeshift prison |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/13/2003 |
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The U.S. military has shut down Camp Cropper, an increasingly notorious makeshift prison where hundreds of Iraqis were crowded into tents through Baghdad's scorching summer, a U.S. official reported last week. The detainees were scattered to other facilities. The Iraqi Lawyers League, pressing a rights campaign under an ex-political prisoner of the Baath regime, has won another concession from the Americans as well: accelerated hearings, with lawyers, for some of at least 5,500 detained Iraqis. That newly elected league president, Malik Dohan al-Hassan, met with U.S. occupation chief Paul Bremer a month ago to register complaints about the internment of thousands of Iraqis without charge since a U.S.-British invasion force toppled Saddam Hussein's Baath government in April. Journalists were barred from Camp Cropper, but released detainees this summer told of overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, and they alleged physical abuse by officers. The human rights group Amnesty International protested it "may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, banned by international law.'' Camp Cropper held as many as 1,200 detainees this summer, said U.S. Army Col. Ralph Sabatino, who specializes in detainee issues and is a chief liaison with the interim Iraqi justice ministry. The camp population included both Iraqis picked up for allegedly committing common crimes, and so-called "security detainees,'' mainly Baathists deemed to be a threat to the security of the occupation force. |
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