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'Punishment Without Trial'

Don't miss the Friday edition of the Guardian and the article Punishment Without Trial:

Hundreds of Iraqis civilians are being held in makeshift jails run by US troops - many without being charged or even questioned. And in these prisons are children whose parents have no way of locating them. Jonathan Steele reveals the grim reality of coalition justice in Baghdad.

According to Steele, the problems generate from conditions such as these:

...arrests followed by incompetent interrogation, or none at all; the lack of an efficient trial-or-release system; shocking prison conditions; constant buck-passing; and sloppy paperwork by the coalition authorities. The result is that in almost every case families take weeks or months to find out where their loved ones are being detained.

Steele provides plenty of examples of kids taken and held for unduly long periods of time. Here's one:

Ahmed Suhail, a final-year high-school student, was with his father, a well-known Baghdad vet, when they were stopped at a checkpoint on May 15. His father had a pistol (the coalition banned the carrying of weapons outside the home from June 14, but at the time it was not an offence). Both were hooded and taken to Baghdad airport. "We were in a tent for 150 people. We only got 25 litres of water a day for everyone, which means about a cupful per person, in temperatures of over 40C," Ahmed recalls. "There was a small ditch in the open for a toilet, which meant you were naked in front of everybody. There was no shower. We slept on the sand. My father could speak some English and two soldiers gave us overalls as a change of clothes. "

After three weeks, for no apparent reason, Dr Suhail was taken to Abu Ghraib, Saddam's notorious Baghdad prison, which has been pressed back into service by the Americans. A week later he was released, but Ahmed remained at the airport. "Then I was told I was being taken to a prison camp at Umm Qasr. No reason was given."

The story continues, we recommend the whole article.

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