3 Reuters workers claim abuse during U.S. detention

Iraqi crew beaten, taunted in Jan., news agency says

Associated Press

May 19, 2004

Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, leaves a military court at Fort Meade Tuesday after day two of his Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation. (AP photo / October 17, 2006)

LONDON - Reuters said yesterday that three Iraqis working for the British news agency were beaten, taunted and forced to put shoes in their mouths during their detention at a U.S. military camp near Fallujah in January.

After being freed from their Jan. 2-5 detention, the men told Reuters about their alleged ordeal, but they decided to make it public only after the U.S. military said there was no evidence of abuse and news broke about the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

Reuters quoted all three men as saying they were beaten and forced to make demeaning gestures as soldiers laughed, taunted them and took photographs. Two told the news agency that they also were degraded by being forced to insert fingers into their anuses and then lick them, and to put shoes in their mouths.

"The U.S. investigation in this case remains totally unsatisfactory as far as we're concerned," Susan Allsopp, a Reuters spokeswoman in London, said yesterday. "We would urge them to re-evaluate the investigation in light of recent events."

The Reuters crew said the abuse happened at Forward Operating Base Volturno, near Fallujah, after it was detained while covering the aftermath of the shooting down of a U.S. helicopter near the Iraqi city. The men were held at Volturno and then at Forward Operating Base St. Mere, they said.

Reuters identified the men as Baghdad-based cameraman Salem Ureibi, Fallujah-based free-lance television journalist Ahmad Mohammad Hussein al-Badrani and driver Sattar Jabar al-Badrani. All three were released without being charged.

The U.S. military, in a report issued before the Abu Ghraib abuse became public, said there was no evidence the men had been tortured or abused.

On Monday, the news agency said, it received a letter dated March 5 from Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior U.S. military commander in Iraq, saying that he was confident the investigation had been "thorough and objective" and its findings were sound.

Reuters said the Pentagon has not responded to a request by its global managing editor to review the military's findings about the incident in light of the scandal over the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.