Iraqi minister: Torture claims exaggerated (AP) Updated: 2005-11-17 21:53
Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was defiant Thursday when answering questions
about allegations his officers have tortured suspected insurgents, saying the
reports have been exaggerated and insisting only five people appeared to have
been maltreated.
Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr shows to
journalists a file with the cover sheet reading 'Documents of terrorists
entering Iraq from the neighbor countries, passports photocopies, routes'
during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2005.
Iraq's Shiite interior minister accused critics Thursday of exaggerating
reports of torture at a lockup seized by U.S. troops last weekend, saying
inmates included both Shiites and Sunnis and only a handful showed signs
of abuse. [AP] |
He said that a number of those detained were suspected foreign terrorists,
including one man accused of building six car bombs.
"These are the most criminal terrorists who were in these cells," Jabr said.
He said he personally instructed that these particular suspects be taken to the
detention center in Jadiriyah because they were considered the most dangerous.
He said that an investigation was underway into the torture allegations,
about which he held talks with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George
Casey.
"I reject torture and I will punish those who perform torture," Jabr said.
"No one was beheaded, no one was killed."
|