Word of more secret prisons swirls in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials and surviving prisoners have named four additional prisons run by the Interior Ministry at which prisoners were held incognito and subjected to torture.

One of the detention locations was in a basement under the Baratha mosque, which was reclaimed from Sunni control by Shi’ites after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

A senior Defense Ministry official said that all prisoners held there had been moved out, to an unknown location, just after the American raid in mid-November on a secret prison in Jadriya.

Other sites identified in a series of interviews by The Washington Times include:

• Part of the Al-Sha’ab Olympic stadium in Baghdad.

• The fourth floor in the Interior Ministry headquarters in Baghdad.

• The Al-Nisoor (Eagles) Prison, which had been the headquarters of the feared Special Security Organization during the Saddam era.

In yesterday’s editions, The Washington Times quoted Sunni political leader Saleh al-Mutlaq as saying yet another prison had been discovered in the Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad, where more than 1,000 had been held.

The only site confirmed thus far was in Baghdad’s Jadriya district, a predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood directly across the Tigris River from the U.S.-protected green zone in downtown Baghdad.

In November, U.S. forces raided the site, freeing 166 prisoners, most of them Sunni Muslims and many showing signs of having been tortured.

American officials were tipped off by several Iraq officials in early September about the Jadriya site, the Defense Ministry official said.

“I was one of the people who advised them that there were lots of people jailed and tortured at Jadriya,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

The official said it was not clear why it took U.S. forces another two months before conducting the raid.

“I suppose they needed to take their time to check and observe and get political approval before acting,” the official said.

A duty officer with the U.S. military in Baghdad said last night that no one was immediately available for comment. Attempts to contact the Interior Ministry were unsuccessful.

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