Israel denies Iraqi involvement

2004-07-04 18:32

Jerusalem - Israel categorically dismissed claims on Sunday by the US general who used to run the notorious Abu Ghraib prison that any of its interrogators had been in Iraq.

"There is no basis whatsoever to the reports regarding the alleged participation of Israeli investigators in the interrogation of prisoners and/or detainees in Iraq," a statement from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau said.

"These reports are emphatically denied," it added.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom also dismissed the claims by Brigadier General Janis Karpinski as "completely baseless".

"We are not involved in any way in Iraq. We are not involved in training or in interrogations, or in anything else. The whole claim is preposterous," he told army radio.

Karpinski, who was suspended in May over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the facility just outside Baghdad had told BBC radio that she had met a man who said he was an Israeli interrogator at another US-run detention centre.

A report by US Major General Antonio Taguba into the abuse at Abu Ghraib referred to the activities of two private American contractors at the prison - interrogator Steven Stefanowicz of CACI International and translator John Israel of Titan Corp.

In his report, Taguba said he suspected that Stephanowicz and Israel were among those who were "either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib."

The Washington Post on Sunday quoted a top US military official as saying he believed Karpinski's claim of possible involvement by Israeli interrogators at Abu Ghraib was an "urban legend" derived in part by the fact that a contractor had the surname Israel.

"Nothing I have seen indicates we had anyone but government contractors and uniformed soldiers there," the unidentified official told the Post.

- AFP