Iraqi POWs talked about electric shocks and all-night beating by the U.S.-British forces, Amnesty said

LONDON, May 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - At least 20 Iraqi prisoners of war, including civilians, complained they had been tortured by British and U.S. occupation forces in central and southern Iraq, a spokesman for human rights group Amnesty International confirmed Friday, Friday, May 16.

"As of Wednesday we had interviewed 20 people," Amnesty researcher Said Boumedouha said, referring to Iraq prisoners of war who said they had been tortured by Anglo-American troops in An-Nasiriyah and around Basra.

When asked, the researcher insisted that torture was the correct word to use for the handling of the prisoners, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

After returning from Amnesty's first fact-finding mission in Iraq since 1993, Boumedouha stressed the mistreatment included "beatings with fists, with feet, also with weapons."

"In one case we are talking about electric shocks being used against a man and in others people are being beaten for the whole night and are still being kicked and their teeth broken, I think you would call that torture," he said.

Boumedouha acknowledged that Amnesty International had not presented any of the claims to British or U.S. forces for any response.

"We still have people on the ground in Iraq and we will continue to gain testimonies," he said.

"Once that is complete we hope to provide a full dossier to present to the British and American authorities as well as publishing ourselves," stressed the Amnesty researcher.

The international human rights watch-dog estimated up to half of the 20 people interviewed were civilians and the rest military.

Boumedouha said all the people he interviewed were free at the time he met them and most had been detained in and around Basra.

The Pentagon announced on April 19, that American military tribunals were set up in Iraq to try Iraqi PoWs, while the Central Command said at the time that 3600 Iraqis were taken as POWs.

But the step was criticized by legalists as being a violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of PoWs.

"The 1949 Third Geneva Convention states PoWs should not be put on trial  unless they had committed a war crime," said Ahmed Abu el-Wafa, an Egyptian Professor of International Law.

"Instead, the convention stipulates that PoWs should be treated humanly and should be freed once military operations are over," he stressed.

The expert underlined that Iraqis did not commit any war crimes as they were simply defending their country and themselves against occupation forces.

‘Security’ Needed

Boumedouha said that everywhere he had gone in central and southern Iraq the Iraqis had given him the same message: "The people do not need food or water, what they need is security."

"Everyone is wondering why they (Anglo-American forces) haven't done enough. They haven't done anything in fact," he charged.

"The looting in Basra for example is still unbelievable and now there are other problems, including car-jacking and revenge killings against former police and Baath party members," he said.

Iraqi areas descended into chaos and lawlessness after the U.S. forces rolled into the capital Baghdad on April 9 and declared the fall of the Saddam regime.