US to leave Abu Ghraib, focus of anger in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Mar 10 (Reuters) The US military prison at Abu Ghraib, Saddam Hussein's torture centre that became a symbol of shame for the American occupation of Iraq, is to close within months, the military said.

Its 4,500 inmates, held on suspicion of insurgent activity, will be transferred to a new facility at the nearby Baghdad airport military base and other camps, a spokesman said.

Purpose-built new cells at Camp Cropper, presently an exclusive compound for Saddam and 100 or so other high-security inmates, will provide better conditions, US officials said.

In all, 14,589 people are held in four US sites in Iraq, more than half of them at Camp Bucca in the southern desert.

''We will transfer operations from Abu Ghraib to the new Camp Cropper once construction is completed there,'' Lieutenant Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry told Reuters yesterday.

''No precise dates have been set, but the plan is to accomplish this within the next two to three months.'' The buildings at Abu Ghraib, which include the original 1960s, British-built jail and surrounding tented camp that has sprung up under US control, will, he said, go to the Iraqi government, which already operates part of the site as a prison.

By some accounts as many as 4,000 people were executed in the prison in 1984, earning the western Baghdad suburb a sinister reputation among Iraqis living under Saddam.

But it was photographs published in 2004 of US soldiers abusing prisoners, some naked, or threatened with snarling dogs, that gave it global notoriety and made it a touchstone for critics of the occupation of Iraq.

The bulk of inmates are minority Sunni Arabs, the dominant community under Saddam, who are accused of backing an insurgency against US forces and the new, Shi'ite-led government. The detention system is a focus of Sunni anger at the new order.

The move to close Abu Ghraib, charged with symbolism, comes as US diplomats try to persuade Sunnis to join a coalition government to prevent a slide into sectarian civil war.

CRITICS Critics, however, dismissed the significance of the closure, since the detentions, criticised by both the Iraqi government and the United Nations, will continue as before.

Conviction rates are below 20 per cent. Inmates can spend many months inside with little recourse to legal process.

Eight soldiers, including Private Lynndie England who was photographed holding an unclothed Iraqi on a dog leash, were convicted of abuses. Two were jailed for more than eight years.

President George W Bush described them as ''bad apples'' and denied there was systematic abuse. The US military says that in fighting its enemies it does employ interrogation techniques that include the use of ''stress positions'' but denies torture.

The publication of previously unseen photographs from Abu Ghraib last month, however, revived debate both in Iraq and around the world about US practices aimed at countering threats from guerrilla groups, particularly Islamist al Qaeda.

Among these are detentions at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Iraq's human rights minister demanded the closure of Abu Ghraib and Iraqi officials want control of the prisoners.

US policy is to hand over prisons to Iraqi control once they are satisfied the authorities are capable of this.

But after criticism of abuses in Iraqi-run facilities, including by the US State Department which this week accused the Iraqi police of torturing detainees, that prospect has worried relatives of some of those in US custody in Iraq.

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