'Israeli interrogated Iraqis'

2004-07-04 16:37

London - General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad where US soldiers abused inmates, has told the BBC that she met a man who said he was Israeli at a detention centre of the US secret service in Iraq.

"I saw an individual there that I hadn't had the opportunity to meet before, and I asked him what did he do there, was he an interpreter? He was clearly from the Middle East," Karpinski said.

"He said, 'Well, I do some of the interrogation here. I speak Arabic but I'm not an Arab; I'm from Israel."

Karpinski was admonished and suspended from her post as the commander of the 800th military police brigade at the end of May for an indefinite period pending the results of investigations into the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners by US soldiers in late 2003.

Six other US officers were given career-ending reprimands after photographs surfaced showing guards engaged in graphic sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners.

Karpinski has been outspoken in defending her performance in Iraq, charging that she was being made a scapegoat for abuses carried out in a wing of Abu Ghraib under the control of military intelligence.

- AFP