'US forces worse than Saddam'
2003-04-23 12:03
Abu Dhabi - A prominent Iraqi Shi'ite cleric, saying he was detained and beaten by United States forces, said on Wednesday that American methods were "worse" than those employed by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
Sheikh Mohammed al-Fartusi told Abu Dhabi television: "Our arrest by the Americans was worse than the arrests that Saddam ordered against our students."
The cleric, whose followers said he was detained on Sunday along with five other Shi'ites, reappeared in Baghdad on Tuesday to cheers from hundreds of supporters who had held protests for two days.
Fartusi's comments came as another cleric reported kidnapped was said to have been released along with two busloads of Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims heading for the holy city of Karbala.
Fartusi claimed: "We were beaten ... spent a night with our hands tied behind our backs," adding however than an American officer did offer an apology.
"It was disgusting. Despite the fact that none of our young men has pointed a weapon against America... but, next time, God alone knows what popular anger could lead to?"
US officials said they could not confirm Fartusi's arrest, but reports that the prominent mullah had been detained infuriated members of the Shi'ite majority.
Massive pilgrimage
Protest organisers said Fartusi, Abdelrahman al-Shuani and Halim al-Fatlawi were arrested along with three bodyguards by US forces on Sunday at a checkpoint 25km south of Baghdad.
They were returning from Karbala, where hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites gathered for a massive pilgrimage that was due to come to a climax later on Wednesday.
The reported arrest threatened to become a major source of friction between the Americans, who toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein on April 9, and the Shi'ites, who account for 60% of Iraq's 25 million people.
On Wednesday, an Iraqi religious leader said cleric Skeikh Mohammed Taqi al-Madrassi had been released along with the two busloads of pilgrims heading for Karbala.
Returning after 32 years
"He was found by coalition forces" late on Tuesday, Sheikh Abd al-Basri told Qatar's Al-Jazeera television.
Madrassi had been "kidnapped by certain parties who remain unknown", on Monday, he said, but provided no further details.
The alleged kidnap was reported on Tuesday by Azhar al-Khafaji, secretary-general of the Iraqi Islamic National Front.
The cleric was "returning to Iraq after 32 years of exile spent fighting Saddam Hussein's regime," he told Al-Jazeera.
"The convoy was stopped at a roadblock in a zone controlled notably by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) but we do not know the identity of the forces that hold him," Khafaji had said.