Legal clinic aims to unclog jammed Iraqi jails

US-funded effort finds detainees are mostly Sunnis

Tina Susman/los angeles timesReleased detainees waited to receive their belongings before leaving Baghdad's Rusafa facility last month. Since an amnesty law passed in February, 1,420 Rusafa inmates have been freed. (Tina Susman/los angeles times)

BAGHDAD - Just five minutes. That's what Iraqi soldiers said they needed when they took Ahmed-Hussein Juma in for questioning in February 2007.

"And now here we are, 1 1/2 years later," Juma said with a hopeless laugh recently as he stood in a holding cage, metal handcuffs on his wrists and a prison number stitched crookedly on his green jumpsuit.

Dozens of other men sat on benches at Baghdad's Rusafa detention center, all waiting to visit a new US-funded legal aid clinic that American officials hope will help clear the backlog of detainees lost in Iraq's severely overloaded prison system.

In its bid to grant the men fair trials or release, the clinic faces immense obstacles, not the least of which is a case file system that consists of paperwork tied together with bits of string. But even more worrying are the sectarian overtones: Most of the detainees are Sunni Arabs accused of offenses related to terrorism, and many say they are targets of the Shi'ite Muslim-dominated security forces who they say used trumped-up charges to achieve sectarian "cleansing."

As the Bush administration touts security gains, the issue of the detainees raises questions about the Iraqi government's commitment to human rights, and undermines Sunni trust in the Shi'ite-led government.

"Unsurprisingly, someone who's been deprived of their liberties for months and years without even a hint of due process . . . of course they're going to be angry," said Joseph Logan of Human Rights Watch, who recently spent time in Iraq researching the justice system. "As the Americans found in 2003, the enemies you create are going to be there down the road. I think there is definitely political impact down the road from this."

One concern for the Iraqi lawyers working at the clinic is whether the Shi'ite-led government will foot the bill when US funding runs dry.

Kareem Swadi Lami, a former police officer and longtime attorney who heads the clinic and oversees its 25 Iraqi lawyers, acknowledges that most Iraqis would find it "very odd" that anyone was offering free legal assistance to Sunnis accused of terrorism. "If the Americans stop providing the money, I don't think the Iraqi government will sponsor us," he said.

Lami estimates that about half of the approximately 6,500 men in the Rusafa complex have been held at least three years. They are among about 26,000 detainees in Iraqi-run prisons; in addition, nearly 20,000 prisoners are held in US-run facilities in Iraq.

A former police officer, Lami acknowledges he is skeptical of many of the claims of innocence. But as an attorney, Lami says he finds it unconscionable that anyone should end up like Juma or the other detainees who say they have been held months or years without being brought before a judge or formally charged. Iraqi law mandates that detainees be brought before a judge within 72 hours of arrest.

"I consider them neglected," said Lami, who has headed the clinic since it opened May 12 with a $900,000 grant to the Iraqi Bar Association. The US military's Law and Order Task Force provides advisers and logistical support. "Even if someone is a criminal, if I don't have any evidence against him I can't keep him."

Yet Lami and US officials acknowledge that this is exactly what is happening, despite an amnesty law passed in February by the Iraqi parliament. The law was supposed to unclog the system by freeing detainees who had been languishing on minor charges, but mistrust, bureaucratic laziness, and a lack of computers in Iraq's justice system are slowing things down.

Since the law passed, 5,062 cases have been submitted for consideration and 1,420 Rusafa inmates have been freed, but new detainees arrive each day.

William V. Gallo, director of the Law and Order Task Force, said the system had "improved tremendously" in recent months. Security improvements nationwide have made it easier for judges and lawyers to do their jobs, and more judges have been hired, he said.

But speaking of the amnesty law, Gallo said, "It hasn't worked as well as we thought it would."

Part of the problem is the mistrust of Justice Ministry officials, who suspect that some release orders are forged and don't honor them without further documentation.