New Abu Ghraib Images Broadcast

16/02/2006| IslamWeb

An Australian TV channel has broadcast previously unpublished images showing apparent US abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail in 2003.

The images on SBS TV are thought to be from the same source as those that caused an outcry around the world and led to several US troops being jailed.

The new images show "homicide, torture and sexual humiliation.

The US has said the images could only "incite unnecessary violence" and endanger US military personnel.

The broadcast of the images comes at a time of increased tension between Muslim nations and the West over cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad ().

'Live rounds'

One of the videos broadcast on the SBS programme Dateline on Wednesday appears to show prisoners being forced to masturbate for the camera.

Other video footage appears to show a prisoner hitting his head against a wall.

The channel said he was a mentally disturbed patient who became a plaything of guards who practised ways of restraining him.

Some photos are said to show corpses. There are also images of prisoners with body and head wounds.

Some of the pictures have now been re-broadcast on US networks and on Arab satellite channels al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera.

SBS journalist Olivia Rousset told the BBC one of them showed a senior Iraqi officer being treated for a throat wound received after he resisted being transferred within the camp.

Some of the new photos showed soldiers who have already been convicted for their part in the abuse, including Lynndie England and Charles Graner, the man prosecutors said was the ringleader in the scandal.

A number are versions of the photographs that caused outrage when they were initially leaked in April 2004, including the prisoner wearing a hood and hooked to wires.

SBS also said it had received reports that some prisoners were killed when US soldiers ran out of rubber bullets during a prison riot and started using live rounds instead.

Convicted

US defence department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the images "could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world".

He said: "[The images] would endanger our military men and women."

Analysts say the reaction in the Muslim world may depend on how widely the images are shown. In Iraq, the emergence of the images come amid tension caused by the release of a video appearing to show UK troops beating Iraqi civilians.

The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says al-Arabiya is broadcasting half a dozen of the new Abu Ghraib images, though it has refrained from showing the most shocking.

The images are part of a group of more than 100 photographs and four videos taken at Abu Ghraib and later handed to the US army's Criminal Investigations Division.

In September a New York judge ruled in favour of a request from the American Civil Liberties Union for the pictures to be released.

The judge rejected the government's arguments that publication could fuel anti-US feelings. The Dateline programme says the government is appealing against the decision.

US state department legal adviser John Bellinger said the images showed "conduct that is absolutely disgusting".

But he said the government had opposed publication as it felt the images were "an invasion of the detainees themselves... and would simply fan the flames around the world".

US President George W Bush has said the Abu Ghraib abuse was a "disgrace".

Nine junior soldiers have been convicted - some are serving jail sentences. All senior US commanders were cleared except the commander in charge of Abu Ghraib at the time, Janis Karpinski, who was reduced in rank from general to colonel.

PHOTO CAPTION

This image is from video made available Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 by the Special Broadcasting System in Australia shows a prisoner being abused. (AP)