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Outcry over alleged police abuse in Iraq

There are fears that Iraqi police have been infiltrated by Shia Muslim paramilitaries -- in particular the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades -- who have targeted Iraq's minority Sunni community.

Seif Saad, an Iraqi guard, showed no remorse on Wednesday for the detention and alleged abuse of 173 prisoners in Baghdad.

"We placed sacks on their heads and tied their hands behind their backs," he said of their arrests, but, as far as he was concerned, they were suspected terrorists.

He was standing in a watchtower overlooking the ministry of the interior building where the detainees were held. The cells were found at the weekend by US forces and the discovery of the prisoners -- and the allegations of torture -- have provoked an international outcry.

The Iraqi police force is now subject to intense scrutiny. The main charge is that the police have been infiltrated by Shia Muslim paramilitaries -- in particular the Iranian-backed Badr Brigades -- who have targeted Iraq's minority Sunni community, from which the insurgency arose.

Since a new Iraqi government was established in the spring, several accounts have emerged of arrests, abuse and extrajudicial killings by paramilitary forces linked to the ministry and dominated by Shia Muslims operating in squads with names such as the Scorpions and the Wolf Brigade. Almost all the incidents have had a sectarian edge.

Saad, 18, a former laborer with no police training, denied the arrests were religiously motivated. He told a reporter the suspects had been brought in for questioning in connection with bombings, regardless of whether they were Sunni, Shia or Kurd. The reporter said Saad wore a special forces uniform resembling that of a Shia paramilitary group.

US forces said they had been hunting for a missing youth when they uncovered the secret detention center. The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry and promised an answer within a week.

But Manfred Novak, the UN special envoy on torture, yesterday called for an independent inquiry. He has received various allegations of torture and degrading treatment by both US and Iraqi forces in Iraq.

Stephen Bowen, an Amnesty International UK campaigns director, said: "This is by no means the first time that we've encountered cases of detainees apparently being tortured by members of the interior ministry -- a grisly pattern is emerging."

Ayad al-Samarrai, a senior official with the Iraqi Islamic party, a mainstream Sunni group, said his organization had made complaints about the illegal arrest and abuse of Sunni Muslims by government paramilitary forces for six months.

The party wanted an independent Iraqi inquiry established, with support from the US military and perhaps the UN, but with the powers to enter interior ministry buildings to investigate the widely reported accounts of abuse and torture. If no suitable Iraqi inquiry team could be set up, then an international investigation should be set up, he said. He said officials from Iraq's human rights ministry had tried to investigate but had been refused access by the powerful interior ministry.
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