Naseer Al-Nahr • Arab News

BAGHDAD, 22 May 2004 — Hundreds of Iraqis were released yesterday from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison here as more instances of abuse of inmates surfaced.

According to a report in the Washington Post, some prisoners at Abu Ghraib were ridden like animals, fondled by female soldiers, forced to curse their religion and required to retrieve their food from toilets.

The Post also published new photographs and shots from a video of the abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraq prisoners by US soldiers. The newspaper said the material, including secret sworn statements from prisoners, came from evidence being assembled from investigations into possible criminal charges against US soldiers.

The photographs depict a US soldier apparently preparing to strike a shackled detainee, a hooded inmate collapsed with his wrists handcuffed to the railing and a baton-wielding soldier appearing to order a naked detainee covered in what looks like excrement to walk a straight line, though his ankles are shackled.

The Post said it obtained hundreds of more pictures and several digital videos of the abuse. In one photo, a cornered inmate is cowering as a soldier tries to restrain a large black dog with both hands. In another, a soldier appears to be kneeling on naked detainees.

In secret testimony to military investigators in mid-January, detainees said they were beaten and humiliated by American soldiers working the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during Ramadan, according to the Post.

The Post also said the detainees told investigators they were forced to denounce Islam or force-fed pork or liquor, required to masturbate in front of female soldiers, threatened with rape, and made to walk on all fours and bark like dogs.

“They said we will make you wish to die and it will not happen,” the newspaper quoted one detainee, identified as Ameen Saeed Al-Sheikh, as saying.

One detainee said he witnessed a US Army translator raping a boy of 15 at the prison, who shouted in pain. Another detainee described US Army Specialist Charles Graner and other US soldiers sodomizing an inmate with a phosphoric light.

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, who oversaw the prison, said that the new photos were shocking but reiterated that she had seen no abuses of prisoners during the time she oversaw the facility.

She said she had limited access to the cellblocks where the abuses occurred because military intelligence personnel oversaw interrogation of prisoners and had panels installed over the doors and windows.

“If anybody had briefed me on those procedures and said ‘This is what we’re planning to do,’ I would have said, ‘Not in one of my facilities,”’ Karpinski told CBS television.

Yesterday, Hundreds of prisoners were released from Abu Ghraib, some accusing their US captors of maltreatment. Some 13 buses filled with prisoners left the gates of the jail. Coalition officials said Thursday that 472 people were to be freed.

As the vehicles pulled away through the dust under the baking sun, female relatives of detainees, among hundreds who crowd outside the prison every day for news of loved ones, wailed out.

“I’ve been waiting here for eight hours. I hope 16 of my relatives will be released today,” said Hamed Idham Jassem, 24, who says his brothers and cousins, arrested last September, are jailed at Abu Ghraib.

There was jubilation for reunited families. Ahlam Ahmed was overjoyed to embrace her grinning son, who was delighted to be a free man again. “Alas, two of my other sons have not been released. I’ll continue to wait, but I’m frightened for them. I’ll only rest when the last American soldier leaves the country,” she said.

Prisoners pressed their faces against the grubby windows, straining to pick out their own relatives from the crowd. As each bus snaked its way out of the prison gates, US soldiers battled to keep the crowd at bay.

One elderly woman cried with joy, although her son was not let out. “I am so happy to see these people freed. They are not people from my family, but that’s how it is,” said 64-year-old Suhad Abdeluahab Al-Sheikh.

She said her brother has been at Abu Ghraib for four months. “I can’t see him because he is still being interrogated. After everything I’ve heard, I’m scared for him,” she added. Later, three of the buses pulled up at the base of the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defense Corps at Amariyah nearby, where about 60 former detainees got off, clutching blankets and bags.

­—Additional input from agencies