U.S. to Hand Over Iraqi Prisoners

Posted by Latif Ali, Azzaman at 4:43 AM on December 2, 2008.

Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody will be handed over to the Iraqi authorities by the end of they year, in line with the security agreement the countries signed last month.

The U.S. says there are 15,000 Iraqis in its prisons in Iraq. The Iraqi authorities are required to run these prisons.

Some of these detainees are former high-ranking Iraqi officials. Apart from a few high-profile cases, almost all the detainees have been languishing in U.S. prisons for years without trail.

It is not clear what will the government do with the detainees.

There are fears that it might execute senior officials who served under former leader Saddam Hussein. Tareq Aziz, the most high-ranking Iraqi diplomat is one of them.

More than 17,000 detainees have been released this year.

U.S. troops say they are proceeding with a plan to set 50 detainees free every day, 1,500 every month. It is doubtful whether the government will adopt the plan when all the detainees become its sole responsibility.

Under the security agreement, U.S. troops in Iraq have no right to run their own jails. And if they detain Iraqis, they must handed them over to the authorities.

Tagged as: iraq, iraqi prisoners