Abu Ghraib abuse violates international law: ICRC

GENEVA (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday said the latest images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison showed clear violations of international humanitarian law.

An Australian television station broadcast on Wednesday what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the jail, fuelling Arab anger against the United States.

“We are shocked and dismayed at the mistreatment and abuse displayed in these images,” ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas told Reuters in Geneva.

“The type of treatment in these images — video or photos — very clearly violates the rules of international humanitarian law which are designed to protect people detained in the context of armed conflict,” she added.

The Special Broadcasting Service’s “Dateline” current affairs program said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004.

The latest grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.

They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.

Officials from the neutral ICRC visited 11,000-12,000 detainees in Iraq last year, including those at four facilities run by multinational forces. But they have been unable to go to Abu Ghraib since January 2005 due to a lack of security, Krimitsas said.

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