A recently released Iraqi medical report proved that Saudi detainee Batal Batal was tortured at the Rusafa prison in Iraq in order to coerce him into making confessions.
Reports on three other prisoners will be released within two months. The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki prevented a parliamentary committee from following up on the status of five other detainees in Iraqi prisons.
Hamid Ahmed, an advocate for Saudi prisoners in Iraq, said that the report, released by the Medico Legal Institute of the Iraqi Health Ministry, will be submitted to the court to penalize those involved in the torture of the detainees.
“The report may help in dropping the charges against Batal, which include four charges of terrorist acts,” said the lawyer.
The parliamentary committee for human rights in Baghdad already faces obstacles regarding governmental procedures to visit prisoners.
Wesal Salim, a member of the committee, said she blames the head of the government for impairing the supervisory role of the government and the committee. She claimed it issued orders to keep humanitarian and supervisory organizations from visiting the prisoners.
Despite this, the Iraqi Ministry of Justice maintains that the ministry is adopting international standards in the administration of its detention centers.
“We demanded that the Minister of Justice, Hassan Al-Shammari, allow us to visit the prisoners, but our demands were refused. The minister told us that Al-Maliki prevented visits of five prisons, including Abu Ghraib prison,” said Salim.
She said that the implementation of the social peace document signed by political leaders last Thursday demanded that human rights violations at Iraqi prisons be stopped immediately.
“Abu Ghraib prison witnesses frequent human rights violations. Only a week ago, a prisoner died there. He had been sentenced to eight years of prison,” she said.
The spokesman of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, however, dismissed any talk of human rights violations. “All Iraqi prisons are compliant with international standards,” he said.
Medical report proves torture of Saudi detainee in Iraq
