Iraqi prime minister takes aim at police torture

BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari yesterday said he would not tolerate torture by the Shi'ite-dominated government police forces, renewing his condemnation of the practice after US and Iraqi forces found abused, starved detainees at an Interior Ministry detention center.

US and Iraqi officials on Sunday said they had discovered at least 12 cases of what an Iraq official called ''severe torture" at a prison run by the Interior Ministry's special police commandos.

Prisoners had their bones broken and their fingernails pulled out, were subjected to electric shocks and had burning cigarettes crushed into their necks and backs, said the Iraqi official, who US officials said had first-hand knowledge of the torture. The Iraqi official spoke on condition he not be named, fearing retribution.

The cases appeared more severe than those of beaten, emaciated prisoners found in the basement of another Baghdad Interior Ministry facility last month.

At a press conference yesterday, Jaafari called the evidence of torture an ''unhealthy phenomenon."

''There is a committee following the case. My military adviser is touring all of Iraq's jails to know if there are such cases," Jaafari said. ''I will not allow such dealing with any prisoner."

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr made similar pledges when the first cases were discovered in mid-November, although Jabr said then that the torture allegations were exaggerated and that the victims were implicated in bombing attacks.

US and Iraqi officials have declined to say whether the tortured inmates at the second prison, like those at the first, were Sunni Arabs, saying they feared political fallout in Thursday's national elections.

In Philadelphia yesterday, President Bush spoke forcefully against cases of ''prisons in Iraq where mostly Sunni men were held, some of whom have appeared to have been beaten and tortured."

''This conduct is unacceptable," Bush said. ''The prime minister and other Iraqi officials have condemned these abuses, an investigation has been launched, and we support these efforts. Those who committed these crimes must be held to account."

The prison, which was inspected Thursday, was the first of what US and Iraqi officials had promised would be a national investigation of Iraq's 1,000-plus detention centers.

The inspections were announced after the first case was uncovered last month. US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said the unannounced inspections would continue.

The prison-torture cases have drawn unusual public rebukes by US officials against the US-supported interim Iraqi government.

Members of Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority allege that former militiamen of Shi'ite religious parties are leading a campaign of jailings and killings that targets Sunnis. Many former militia fighters have joined the Interior Ministry forces.

Scores of handcuffed Sunni men have been found shot and killed around the country since Jaafari's government took office in April.

The interim Shi'ite majority government is fighting a Sunni-led insurgency, in which thousands of civilians and security force members have been killed.

In Baghdad, Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni politician, said yesterday that torture was common in Iraq's prisons.

''The problem is that people think this is the only one, that it's a surprise thing for the government," he said. ''Any prison now in Iraq you will find the same."

Mutlak acknowledged torture was prevalent under the Sunni-dominated government of ousted president Saddam Hussein. ''But not as bad," he said.