Detainees confirm torture in secret Muthanna detention facility in Iraq

Detainees in a secret Baghdad detention facility were hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report which adds more proof to earlier revelations that torture was being committed in a secret prison under PM’s Maliki’s control.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 42 of the men in the Al Rusafa Detention Center on April 26, 2010. They were among about 300 detainees transferred from the secret facility in the old Muthanna airport in West Baghdad to Al Rusafa into a special block of 19 cage-type cells over the past several weeks, after the existence of the secret prison was revealed by the LA Times on the 19th of April. All prisoners were accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, and many said they were forced to sign false confessions. More than 100 prisoners are allegedly still in the prison.

The men interviewed said the Iraqi army detained them between September and December 2009 after sweeps in and around Mosul, a stronghold of Sunni Arab militants, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The provincial governor alleged at the time that ordinary citizens had been detained as well, often without a warrant.They said torture was most intense during their first week at Muthanna.

‘Secret’ prison?
Iraqi Defense Minister Abd Al-Qadir Al-Obeidi denied that the prisons were secret or that the prisoners had been kidnapped. He said that they had been arrested “in keeping with proper legal procedures and that the investigation of some of the prisoners yielded the information that resulted in the killing of two key terrorist figures early this week.”

The LA Times however described the situation as follows:

Worried  that courts would order the detainees’ release, security forces obtained a court order and transferred them to Baghdad, where they were held in  isolation. Human rights officials learned of the facility in March from  family members searching for missing relatives.
(…)
Commanders  initially resisted efforts to inspect the prison but relented and  allowed visits by two teams of inspectors, including Human Rights  Minister Wijdan Salim. Inspectors said they found that the 431 prisoners had been subjected to appalling conditions and quoted prisoners as  saying that one of them, a former colonel in President Saddam Hussein’s  army, had died in January as a result of torture.

Mr. Maliki himself described the prison at Muthanna as a “transit site under the  control of the Ministry of Defense”, which used it for a “specific  period.”

However, according to sources of the LA Times and Human Rights Watch, the prison was not under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Justice or Ministry of Interior, but under the jurisdiction of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s military office, the Baghdad Operations Command, which only answers to him.

Maliki will continue to use this private force, but stated that he was committed to stamping out torture.

Maliki vowed to shut down the prison and ordered the arrest of the officers working there after Salim presented him with a report this month. Since then, 75 detainees have been freed and an additional 275 transferred to regular jails, Iraqi officials said. Maliki said in an interview that he had been unaware of the abuses. He said the prisoners had been sent to Baghdad because of concerns about corruption in Mosul.

“Our reforms continue, and we have the Human Rights Ministry to monitor this,” he said. “We will hold accountable anybody who was proven involved in such acts.”

“America is the symbol of democracy, but then you have the abuses at Abu Ghraib,” Mr. Maliki said. “The American government took tough measures, and we are doing the same, so where is the problem and why this  raucousness?”

Judges present in the prison
Maliki further stated seven judges operated at the prison. While investigative  judges were indeed stationed at the secret prison, they  appeared to be complicit in the torture, according to Human Rights  Watch.

A judge “heard cases in a room down the hall from one of the torture  chambers,” the prisoners told Human Rights Watch.

Iraq’s investigations record into human rights violations is rather bleak
While Maliki’s promises are welcome, a recent Amnesty report criticised the persisent failure of Iraqi authorities for not conducting independent investigations into human rights abuses. Amnesty points out that in 2005, 168 detainees were found in appalling conditions at an Iraqi secret detention facility in the al-Jadiriya district of Baghdad. The findings of an investigation into the incident launched shortly afterwards were never made public and no one has been prosecuted in connection with the abuses that took place at the prison. Amnesty’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui said:

Al-Maliki’s government has repeatedly pledged to investigate incidents  of torture and other serious human rights abuses by the Iraqi security  forces, but no outcome of such investigations has ever been made  public,” .

“This has encouraged a  widespread culture of impunity but this time, Iraq must investigate the  torture allegations thoroughly and bring to justice those responsible  for carrying out any abuses.”

“The existence of secret jails indicates that military units in Iraq are allowed to commit human rights abuses unchecked,”

The UN has criticized as well the fact that no investigation ever has been made public.

The Camp Honor Detention Facility
The controversy over the secret prison, located at the Old Muthanna airport in west Baghdad, has also pushed Maliki to begin relinquishing control of two other detention facilities at Camp Honor, a base in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The base belongs to the Baghdad Brigade and the Counter-Terrorism Force, elite units that report to the prime minister and are responsible for holding high-level suspects.

Families and lawyers say they find it nearly impossible to visit the Camp Honor facilities. The Justice Ministry is now assuming supervision of the Green Zone jails, although Maliki’s offices will continue to command directly the military units.

Camp Honor was apparently a transit-place for detainees on the way to Muthanna. In December 2009, the Human Rights Ministry asked the judiciary to investigate Baghdad Brigade interrogators over allegations of torture at Camp Honor, but hasn’t received an answer, Iraqi officials said.

UN earlier confirmed existence of secret prisons in Iraq
The recent UN report on the use of secret detentions in the context of fighting terrorism has singled out Iraq as well for its use of secret prisons. The report is scheduled to be discussed in the Human Rights Council in June 2010.

The report took up the case of several former collaborators of ex-MEP Mr. al-Dainy, who was arrested with his collaborators in February 2009 and held in secret detention at a number of different locations. In particular, they were detained in a prison in the Green Zone run by the Baghdad Brigade.

par. 228: While held at the Baghdad Brigade prison, most of them were subjected to severe ill-treatment, including beating with cables, suspension from the ceiling by either the feet or hands for up to two days at a time, or electroshocks. Some had black bags put over their heads and were suffocated for several minutes until their bodies became blue several times in a row. Also, some had plastic sticks introduced into their rectum. They were also threatened with the rape of members of their families. They were forced to sign and fingerprint pre-prepared confessions. As a result of the ill-treatment, several of them had visible injuries on several parts of their bodies. Many lost a considerable amount of weight.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) referred to “unofficial detention” by Iraqi authorities, notably the Ministry of the Interior, in several of its reports, highlighting the existence of two other facilities namely f the al-Jadiriya facility and ‘site 4’.

News fans sectarian sections
According to the NY Times:

The prison’s discovery comes at a delicate time for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is vigorously working to keep power after his  coalition narrowly lost the March 7 national elections.

The revelations could further polarize Iraqis, still coming to grips  with the scars of the sectarian conflict between 2005 and 2007. All  those held at the secret prison before it was shut down were brought to  Baghdad from Sunni Arab areas in Nineveh where Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, is  largely perceived as a sectarian leader with a personal vendetta against anyone associated with the former Sunni-led government of Saddam Hussein.

Sheik Abdullah Humedi, the tribal leader from Nineveh, warned that  the torture revelations had once more inflamed sectarian passions and  could plunge the country into a fresh cycle of violence.
“This breeds extremism,” he said. “In our country a man who is raped  will commit suicide, and how do you think he will do it?”

At least 505 cases of torture were documented in Iraqi prisons in 2009,  according to a  report released by the State Department in March. Recently 251 cases of disappeared terrorist suspects in Iraq were handed over to the UN for investigation as well.