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Frauds Try to Exploit Iraq Abuse Scandal
The scandal over abuse at Abu Ghraib is bringing out the stories, from people fearing for imprisoned relatives, from former detainees who claim mistreatment — and from possible frauds looking to exploit the uproar. At a press conference by human rights groups in Baghdad on Sunday, numerous former prisoners came forward to tell of abuse including beatings by soldiers and sleep deprivation. The accounts resembled those found by U.S. investigators at the notorious prison.Fallujah native Abdul-Qader Abdul-Rahman al-Ani, his left elbow wrapped in bandages, his right forearm bound in a cast, recounted how he was beaten by soldiers who picked him up last month. The soldiers tied him and two others arrested with him to a tree and sodomized them one after the other, he told journalists. "I ask President Bush," he said. "Does he agree with this?" As Ani, 47, repeated his story, he was interrupted by Jabber al-Okaili, a member of one of the human rights groups that organized the gathering. "He's lying," al-Okaili shouted. "He's a liar!" Al-Ani was rushed to an office, where al-Okaili and others unwound the bandage on his left arm and found the elbow unscarred and healthy. They cut off half of the cast on his forearm, even as al-Ani insisted, "By God, it's true, everything I say is true." "All his papers were forged," al-Okaili, of the Free Iraq Institute, said after al-Ani left the building. "Who knows why he did this. Maybe he was paid by former members of Saddam Hussein's regime." "There are people who try to exploit the situation," said Adel al-Allami, of the Human Rights Organization of Iraq. "We have to be very careful and very precise in our facts. This is a very sensitive issue." Posted by: Fred 2004-05-09 |
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