AI: Concern for arrested Iraqi woman
Friday 25 February 2005
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AI sends Urgent Action reports to the Department of Defence |
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Amnesty International (AI) has expressed concern for the whereabouts of an Iraqi woman allegedly arrested by US and Iraqi military personnel.In an Urgent Action report issued on 18 February, AI USA is demanding the safe treatment of Huda Hafiz Ahmad al-Azawi, a businesswoman, seized at 4am on 17 February. She was reportedly handcuffed, blindfolded, and beaten as were her two daughters, Nura, 15, and Sara, 20.The AI report says that jewellery, cash, three computers and a mobile phone were confiscated as part of an investigation into accusations that she had been "supporting the resistance".Al-Azawi and her sister had been previously arrested in December 2003 along with their brother Iyad on suspicion of supporting armed anti-US groups. Al-Azawi had earlier claimed that Iyad had died while in US custody.US military authorities have not yet commented on the report.According to Alistair Hodgett, AI's media director at the Washington, DC office, every Urgent Action report regarding Iraq is sent to AI offices around the world and the US Department of Defence."We have not yet seen any response from the US military," he told Aljazeera.net.
Iraq abuse UK soldiers jailed
Saturday 26 February 2005
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The trio were found guilty earlier in the week |
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Three British soldiers convicted of mistreating detainees in Iraq have been expelled from the army and jailed after a trial over prisoner abuse.Judge Advocate Michael Hunter made the announcement on Friday after a seven-member panel of officers found the three men guilty earlier in the week. The most senior of the trio, Corporal Daniel Kenyon, 33, was given an 18-month sentence after being found guilty of three charges including failing to report the mistreatment of the captured looters at an aid camp near Basra in May 2003. A panel of seven officers and a judge at the court martial in an army barracks sentenced Lance Corporal Mark Cooley, 25, to two years in prison after he was found guilty of disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind for driving a forklift truck with a bound Iraqi suspended from the prongs.
A photograph of the helpless Iraqi dangling from the forklift was among a series of photographs taken by soldiers at the aid camp known as Camp Bread Basket. In the verdicts which were given on Wednesday, Cooley was also convicted of simulating a punch on an Iraqi. The third defendant, Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, was sentenced to five months in jail after he pleaded guilty to assault. He had been pictured standing on an Iraqi. All three soldiers were also dishonourably discharged from the army.The case drew comparison with the Abu Ghraib scandal involving US troops.The British case came to light when another soldier was arrested with photographs depicting scenes of mistreatment including some in which soldiers had apparently forced naked Iraqi detainees to simulate sodomy and oral sex.
