Prisoner abuse pictures released

So they get another 20 days to appeal again, You would not want to be holding your breath waiting you can bet

October 01, 2005
NEW YORK: A US federal judge yesterday ordered the Government to release pictures of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, rebuffing concerns that they could provide propaganda fuel for terrorists.

The ruling favoured the American Civil Liberties Union, which had filed a lawsuit seeking the release of almost 90 photographs and a handful of videotapes in the hands of the Department of Defence.

The Government had firmly resisted the request, insisting that the images would fan anti-US sentiment that could be exploited by terrorist groups and ultimately result in violent attacks.

"Suppression of information is the surest way to cause its significance to grow and persist," district judge Alvin Hallerstein said in his 50-page ruling.

"The fight to extend freedom has never been easy, and we are once again challenged, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by terrorists who engage in violence to intimidate our will and to force us to retreat," he said.

"Our struggle to prevail must be without sacrificing the accountability of government and military officials."

Judge Hallerstein stayed his release order for 20 days to allow the Government to appeal.

The ruling came as the former US commander of Abu Ghraib prison said little had been done to check abuses at US-run jails in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay since the first photographs exposed the scandal.

"We haven't dealt very effectively with those photographs or what they indicated," US Army Reserve Colonel Janis Karpinski, who was demoted from her rank of brigadier-general over the scandal, told BBC radio.

"I think it's largely proved now that it wasn't just seven out-of-control soldiers on a night shift."

Colonel Karpinski said she was the only high-ranking officer to have been dealt with so harshly as others implicated in the events "walked, basically".

The pictures were taken by Specialist Joseph Darby, who last year turned over to military investigators photographic and video evidence of his fellow military policemen using dogs to intimidate prisoners, forcing them to engage while naked in mock sex scenes and being humiliated by female soldiers.

Only a small number of the images have made it into the public domain.

AFP

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