*Ø* New torture allegations from Iraq

[Nora's comment to me: Can you just imagine the Red Cross reporting Allawi to himself?]

Red Cross named jail before alleged killings by PM
By Paul McGeough in Amman

"The International Committee of the Red Cross had urged an investigation of the brutal treatment of prisoners at the Baghdad prison where Iraq's new Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, is alleged to have executed as many as six suspected insurgents.

"The Red Cross request was made six months before the killings were said to have taken place at the maximum security Al-Amariyah police station prison.

"Almost a year after the fall of Saddam Hussein, a report by the Red Cross to the US occupation forces named the station as one of six run by Iraqi authorities in Baghdad at which detainees were subjected to the same coercive interrogation tactics used on prisoners by the fallen regime.

"The report says that one group of prisoners 'allegedly had water poured on their legs and [then] had electrical shocks administered to them with stripped tips of electrical wires'. Others had shown scars that they said were from burns inflicted by cigarettes.

"Two informants who said they had witnessed the alleged executions last month confirmed that the practices – including the use of electrical shocks – were still used on detainees at Al-Amariyah.

"The Red Cross report, dated February this year, states: 'During interrogation, the detaining authorities allegedly whipped [them] with cables on the back; kicked them in the lower parts of the body, including in the testicles; handcuffed and left them hanging from the iron bars of the cell windows or doors, in painful positions for several hours at a time.'"
Source: Sydney Morning Herald