Iraq operating ‘secret prison’: Human Rights Watch
BAGHDAD — Security forces linked to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are operating a "secret detention site" and elite teams are torturing detainees at a separate facility, Human Rights Watch charged on Tuesday. The New York-based watchdog's claims come a week after the Los Angeles Times reported some detainees at a prison in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone had been abused and held without charge for up to two years, charges Baghdad denies. HRW said that in late November, Iraqi authorities moved nearly 300 detainees to a secret site within a military base known as Camp Justice in the Kadhimiyah neighborhood of north Baghdad, citing interviews it had conducted and classified government documents it obtained.
"The hurried transfers took place just days before an international inspection team was to examine conditions at the detainees' previous location at Camp Honor in the Green Zone," [HRW said in a statement.] "The Iraqi government should immediately close the facilities or regularize their position and make them open for inspections and visits," [it added].