US/IRAQ: Pictures of American abuse from Abu Ghraib prison that shocked the world will never be repeated and conditions inside the jail are improving, according to Iraq's interim human rights minister.
Bakhtiar Amin said yesterday his ministry was conducting weekly visits to the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad after reaching agreement with the US general in charge of the jail.
"Abu Ghraib is now better than it used to be," Amin told a news conference. "We were promised that those pictures we saw will not be seen again. We are observing Abu Ghraib now and nothing like this is happening."
The pictures taken at Abu Ghraib late last year, and made public in April, embarrassed the US government. Some showed American soldiers piling naked Iraqis into a pyramid and threatening them with dogs. In one, a hooded prisoner has electrical wires attached to his body.
The United States formally handed sovereignty back to Iraq on June 28th, but still controls Abu Ghraib and other detention centres where anti-American insurgents or senior members of Saddam Hussein's regime are being held.
Sadoun Sultan, a ministry official who heads the weekly visit to Abu Ghraib, said the first time they went to the facility on May 27th, conditions were "not perfect".
"What we saw was not great and not perfect, but then after a second, third and fourth visit things have improved. What we saw on TV will not happen again. We cannot be at every interrogation but we can meet the prisoners alone, so if there are violations then we will certainly know about them," Sultan said.
Amin said prisoners were now getting better food and decent showers, while family visits were being made easier.
"Now, the prisoners and the Americans and Iraqis working there eat the same food. Criminal prisoners are separated from security prisoners and we are trying to open a prison library."
Security prisoners are those suspected of actual or potential involvement in violence against US-led forces or Iraqi targets. They include at least 90 foreign fighters.
Amin said 77 were being held in a jail in the southern port of Um Qasr and a dozen in Abu Ghraib. "They are being detained under various charges, such as planning terrorist attacks and photographing military posts. Some of them confessed that they belonged to al-Qaeda.".
Meanwhile, in Brussels , EU foreign ministers urged the interim Iraqi government not to reinstate the death penalty, while Baghdad asked the bloc for more aid and a greater political presence.
"Ministers made clear their opposition to the restoration of the death penalty," the 25-nation bloc's ministers said in a statement after meeting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari.
Senior Iraqi politicians, including President Ghazi al-Yawar, have said they plan to reinstate capital punishment for a limited range of crimes after an amnesty period. If it is reinstated, toppled President Saddam Hussein, who is accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide,might be executed.
"The message has been very clear. We have this policy, we will maintain this policy," Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot told a news conference with Zebari.
There was no suggestion that a decision to reintroduce the death penalty would be an obstacle to the EU executive Commission's aid to Iraq, which is set to be about €200 million a year.