PRISONERS held in a secret Baghdad jail suffered a variety of tortures from electric shocks to sodomy, according to a report released today by the Human Rights Watch organisation.
The group is calling for Iraq to investigate and prosecute those government and security officials found to be responsible.
Human Rights Watch, a worldwide organisation that strives to shine the light on such abuse, interviewed 42 of the men in the al Rusafa Detention Centre on April 26, 2010.
They were among about 300 detainees transferred from the secret facility in the old Muthanna airport in West Baghdad to al Rusafa over the past several weeks, after the existence of the secret prison was revealed.
Those held were allegedly hung upside-down, deprived of air, kicked, whipped, beaten, given electric shocks, and sodomized.
Most of the 300 displayed fresh scars and injuries they said were a result of routine and systematic torture they had experienced at the hands of interrogators at Muthanna. All were accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, and many said they were forced to sign false confessions.
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"The horror we found suggests torture was the norm in Muthanna," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
"The government needs to prosecute all of those responsible for this systematic brutality."
The men interviewed said the Iraqi army detained them between September and December 2009 after sweeps in and around Mosul, a stronghold of Sunni Arab militant groups, including al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
To stop the torture, detainees said, they either offered fake confessions or signed or fingerprinted a prepared confession without having read it. Even after they confessed, many said, torture persisted.
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