Abu Ghraib prison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Abu Ghraib cell block

The Abu Ghraib prison (Arabic: سجن أبو غريب; also Abu Ghurayb) is in Abu Ghraib, an Iraqi city 32 km (20 mi) west of Baghdad. It became internationally known as a place where Saddam Hussein's government tortured and executed dissidents, and later as the site of Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal where the United States military's torture of Iraqi detainees was revealed in a series of photographs published in worldwide news media.

Under Saddam's Ba'ath government, it was known as Abu Ghraib Prison and had a reputation as a place of torture and some of the worst cases of torture in the modern world. It was sometimes referred to in the Western media as "Saddam's Torture Central". The prison was renamed after United States forces expelled the former Iraqi government, which had called it the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility (BCCF) or Baghdad Central Correctional Facility. In May of 2004, Camp Avalanche, a tent camp on the grounds of Abu Ghraib for security detainees, changed its name to Camp Redemption at the request of a governing council member.

The prison complex was built by British contractors in the 1960s, and covered 280 acres (1.15 km²) with a total of 24 guard towers. The size of a small town, the area was divided into five separate walled compounds for different types of prisoners. Each block contained a dining room, prayer room, exercise area and rudimentary washing facilities. Cells contained up to 40 people in a space four metres by four. By the fall of the government in 2003 the five compounds were designated for foreign prisoners, long sentences, short sentences, capital crimes and "special" crimes.

Map of Iraq highlighting Abu Ghraib

1 Under Saddam Hussein
- 1.1 Known mass-graves related to Abu Ghraib
2 Under the US-led coalition
3 Transfer to Iraqi control
4 Detainees
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Under Saddam Hussein

See Human rights in Saddam's Iraq for a discussion of the context of these events.

Under the government of Saddam Hussein the facility was under the control of the Directorate of General Security (Al-Amn al-Amm) and was the site of the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners—up to 4,000 prisoners are thought to have been executed there in 1984 alone. During the 1990s human rights organization Amnesty International documented repeated events where as many as several hundred inmates were executed in a single episode. These included hundreds executed in November 1996, and several hundred members of the Shi'a denomination killed in 1998 and 2001. Amnesty reported that it could not produce a complete picture of events at the prison due to government secrecy. It was also the reputed location of Saddam Hussein's alleged woodchipper.

The section for political inmates of Abu Ghraib was divided into "open" and "closed" wings. The closed wing housed only Shi'ites. They were not allowed visitors or any outside contact.

Coalition prisoners were held and tortured in Abu Ghraib during the Persian Gulf War, including the British Special Air Service patrol Bravo Two Zero.

In 2001 the prison is thought to have held as many as 15,000 inmates. Hundreds of Shi'a Kurds and Iraqi citizens of Iranian ethnicity had reportedly been held there incommunicado and without charges since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. Guards fed shredded plastic to prisoners. There are allegations that some of these detainees were subjected to experiments as part of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons program.

The prison was reportedly abandoned just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq when Saddam announced general amnesty for virtually all the nation's prisoners. An expansion project began in early 2002 that would add six new blocks to the prison.^[1] In October 2002, Saddam Hussein gave amnesty to most prisoners in Iraq. After the prisoners were released, the prison was left empty to be vandalized and looted. Almost all of the documents relating to prisoners were piled and burnt inside of prison offices and cells, leading to extensive structural damage.

[edit] Known mass-graves related to Abu Ghraib

In the area of Khan Dhari, west of Baghdad

Mass grave with the bodies of political prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. 15 victims were executed on 26 December, 1998 and buried by prison authorities under the cover of darkness.

Al-Zahedi, on the western outskirts of Baghdad

Secret graves near a civilian cemetery with the bodies of almost 1000 political prisoners. According to an eye witness, ten to 15 bodies arrived at a time from the Abu Ghraib prison and were buried by local civilians. An execution on 10 December 1999 in Abu Ghraib claimed the lives of 101 people in one day. On 9 March, 2000, 58 prisoners were killed at a time. The last corpse interred was number 993.^[2]

[edit] Under the US-led coalition

Front gate of the prison seen from the highway

One of a series of photos taken by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib. The hooded prisoner (Satar Jabar) had wires attached to both hands and his penis, and was reportedly told that he would be electrocuted if he fell off the box he was standing on; at the time this photo became public, US officials stated that the wires were not actually electrified. This was later denied by the person in the photo who stated in an interview that the wires were electrified and had been used to give shocks.

Until August, 2006, the site known as the Abu Ghraib prison was used by both the U.S.-led coalition occupying Iraq and the Iraqi government. The area of the facility known as "the Hard Site" is under the complete control of the Iraqi government and is used for housing convicted criminals. The Hard Site is best known from the abuse scandal pictures, the photos of which were all taken in Tier 1 of the complex. The remainder of the facility was occupied by the United States military. It served as both a FOB (Forward Operating Base) and a detention facility. All detainees are housed in an area known as "Camp Redemption." The camp is divided into 5 security levels. This recently built (Summer of 2004) camp replaced the three level setup of Camp Ganci, Camp Vigilant and Tier 1.

The prison has been used as a detention facility, holding more than 7,000 people at its peak in early 2004. The current population, however, is much smaller. This is, in part, because the new Camp Redemption has a much smaller capacity than Camp Ganci alone had. Many detainees have been sent from Abu Ghraib to Camp Bucca for this reason. All people being held by the United States military were housed in Camp Redemption, some of which are alleged rebels, some alleged criminals. Convicted criminals are transferred to the Iraqi run Hard Site. According to the International Red Cross, close to 90% of the people being held are not guilty of the allegations and many were picked-up almost at random by US patrols on sweeps. It was the publicly declared opinion of senior UK and US officials that the prison should be demolished as soon as possible, however this was overruled by the interim Iraqi Government at the 'request' of senior officials of the US government.

In late April 2004, U.S. television news-magazine 60 Minutes broke a story that had been taken from The New Yorker involving regular torture and humiliation of Iraqi inmates by a small group of U.S. soldiers. The story included photographs depicting the torture of prisoners, and resulted in a substantial political scandal within the U.S. and other coalition countries. For more information see Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.

On April 20, 2004 twelve mortar rounds were fired into the prison by insurgents. Twenty-two detainees were killed and 92 wounded. The attack was viewed as either as an attempt to incite a riot or retribution for detainees cooperating with the United States.^[3]

In May 2004 the US-led coalition embarked on a prisoner release policy to try to reduce numbers to fewer than 2000. Despite numerous large releases and transfers to Camp Bucca, this goal has yet to be obtained due to the number of incoming detainees.

In a May 24, 2004 address at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania, United States President George W. Bush announced that the prison would be demolished. On June 14 Iraqi interim President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer indicated that he opposed this decision, and on June 21 U.S. military judge Col. James Pohl ruled that the prison was a crime scene and could not be demolished.

On April 2, 2005 the prison was attacked by between 40 and 60 insurgents. Between 20 and 44 Americans and 12 Iraqi prisoners were injured in the attack. In another battle the next day, several insurgents were killed and more than forty US soldiers and at least thirteen Iraqi prisoners injured. According to the US military, about fifty insurgents were injured and a few others killed. Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for both of the strikes.^{[citation needed]}

During the week ending August 27, 2005, nearly 1,000 detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were released at the request of the Iraqi government.^[4]

On December 4, 2005, Reuters reported that according to John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), those held in Abu Ghraib prison were among an estimated 14,000 people imprisoned in violation of UN Resolution 1546. According to Pace,

All [prisoners in Iraq] except those held by the Ministry of Justice are, technically speaking, held against the law because the Ministry of Justice is the only authority that is empowered by law to detain, to hold anybody in prison.^[5]

[edit] Transfer to Iraqi control

On March 9, 2006, the U.S. military decided to close Abu Ghraib prison and transfer prisoners to other jails in Iraq.^[6]The prison was reported emptied of prisoners in August 2006.^[7] On September 2, 2006, Abu Ghraib was formally handed over to Iraq's government. Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, stated "The Abu Ghraib detention facility was handed over to the Iraqi government." The formal transfer was conducted between Major General Jack Gardner, Commander of Task Force 134, and representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice and the Iraqi army.^[8]