Iraqi PM: Detainees apparently tortured
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-16 01:06

The Interior Ministry is controlled by Shiites. Sunni leaders have accused Shiite-dominated security forces of detaining, torturing and killing hundreds of Sunnis simply because of their religious affiliation.

The prime minister did not say where the prison was located, but Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, the Interior Ministry's undersecretary for security, said it was in the basement of a building in Baghdad's neighborhood of Jadriyah.

Late Sunday, U.S. troops surrounded and took control of an Interior Ministry building in Jadriyah following repeated allegations that Iraq security forces were illegally detaining and torturing people suspected of participating in the insurgency.

Al-Jaafari did not say whether U.S. troops were involved in discovering the center. The American military declined comment on the incident and referred all questions to the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Dorothea Krimitsas, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the organization would try to verify the information.

"This is the first we've heard of this," Krimitsas said when contacted by The Associated Press in Geneva.

She said the ICRC — which visits detainees in situations of conflict — would follow its usual practice of refusing to say publicly what it is discussing with Iraqi authorities.

"I cannot confirm or deny any action that we take for the time being," Krimitsas said.

She said the ICRC has been visiting only one detention facility in Iraq under control of Iraqi authorities — part of the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. The other facilities it visits — including the rest of Abu Ghraib — are under U.S. control, she said.

U.S. officials have been encouraging Sunni Arabs to take part in next month's parliamentary elections in hopes that a strong turnout by the disaffected minority could help ease sectarian tensions, calm the insurgency and speed the day when foreign troops could go home.

Al-Jaafari, who is a Shiite, said one of his deputies will be heading a committee that will include some ministers and will investigate what happened. The committee will finish its work within two weeks, al-Jaafari said.

"They should investigate how this happened and how it reached this point," al-Jaafari said.

Kamal said the committee will be headed by Kurdish Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nouri Shaways.