BAGHDAD - Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki said on Tuesday that a panel of experts would examine the cases of the thousands of detainees held in US and Iraqi jails and free those with no charges to answer. In a statement released after a cabinet meeting in Baghdad, Maliki said: “A committee specialised in reviewing detainees’ affairs in the prisons run by Iraqi authorities and multinational forces had been formed.“The judiciary will set free all those who haven’t been charged while those charged would be sent before the judiciary,” he said.
In the four years since a US invasion overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, thousands of suspected criminals and insurgents have been rounded up, while Iraq’s judicial system has failed to keep up with the case load. And, in some cases, “security detainees” are held without trial in a process which has been condemned by human rights groups. Iraqi interior ministry forces have also been accused of maintaining secret prisons.
| You'd think the HR groups would want us to run Abu Ghraib again. |
| Those are the ones trying to kill our people. |