A classified US report on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq indicts US Army soldiers of "egregious acts" and "grave breaches of international law," reports CNN.
"Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees," says the report, prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba and made available to CNN.
"An investigation report said key senior leadership of the Army's 800th Military Police Brigade and the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade failed to comply with established regulations, policies and command directives in preventing detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and Camp Bucca from August 2003 to February 2004," said the cable news channel.
The report was based on tips from two whistleblowers, more than 50 interviews of military police, potential suspects and detainees, as well as "numerous photos and videos portraying in graphic detail actual detainee abuse" taken by detention facility personnel at Abu Ghraib.
According to CNN, it cites numerous examples of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib, including
· Threatening with a 9 mm pistol.
· Pouring cold water on naked detainees.
· Threatening males with rape.
· Beating with a broom handle and a chair.
· Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.
· Threatening with military dogs.
· Attaching wires to extremities, including the penis.
· Accusing prisoners of being homosexual.
· Forcing detainees into compromising positions while naked.
At least two military investigations are looking at whether private contractors involved in the interrogation of prisoners had a role in their alleged abuse, said the network quoting senior Pentagon officials.
A former prisoner who says he appeared in the photographs, Haydar Sabbar Ali, told CNN's Ben Wedeman that he was cursed and beaten for four hours and had his clothes cut off with a knife as punishment for beating a fellow prisoner suspected of being an American spy.
"We are Muslims. We don't go naked in front of our families. But there we were, naked in front of American women and men," he said. The guards "hit you hard in sensitive places, in the kidney, in the chest, in the throat. Our bodies were full of bruises. They didn't let us out of the cells until all our wounds had healed."
