A snapshot of injustice

IN APRIL 2006, US forces arrested and imprisoned Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photographer working for the Associated Press in Ramadi. The military alleged that he had suspicious links with insurgents there, and later said he had possessed insurgent propaganda, material for making roadside bombs, and a surveillance photo for a coalition force installation. But neither Hussein nor his AP employers have had any chance to challenge whatever evidence there was against him.

Only last week did the military announce that it would turn its file on Hussein over to an Iraqi investigative judge on Dec. 9. It is possible that Hussein was collaborating with insurgents while serving as part of the AP team that won the Pulitzer Prize for photography in 2005.

But US and Iraqi officials have no excuse for holding him for 19 months without giving him a chance to contest the charges, or even to know exactly what they are.

Hussein, 36, is one of several Iraqi journalists the US military has detained in Iraq, some of whom are still being held. Officials released several journalists working for Reuters after months of detention without ever bringing charges against them.

On Dec. 9, the Iraqi judge will examine the evidence against Hussein and then decide whether the case is strong enough to go to a three-judge court. The AP has done its own investigation. It concluded that the US military's accusations against Hussein are groundless, to the extent that they are ascertainable at all.

According to a Washington Post opinion piece late last month by AP president Tom Curley, military officials told Hussein's American lawyer that it wasn't clear whether Hussein would be allowed to present evidence in the Iraqi court refuting the evidence against him. Then again, how could he? Neither Hussein nor his lawyers have been able to see the prosecution's evidence.

Curley said the military interrogated Hussein several weeks ago, without his lawyer present, violating his right to counsel under both Iraqi and US law. "This affair," Curley wrote, "makes a mockery of the democratic principles of justice and the rule of law that the United States says it is trying to help Iraq establish."

In an interview with the Globe Friday, Curley stood by a damning indictment he made in the Post and in a letter to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about the US military's motive in this case: that it wanted to stop Hussein from producing images of the war that the military did not want the public to see.

If Curley is right, it is not just the rule of law that is being undermined under US auspices in Iraq; it is also freedom of the press.

When that Iraqi judge finally hears Hussein's case next week, both the photographer and the US military will be on trial.