U.N. Exec Decries Illegal Iraq Detainees

[hiley]

U.N. Exec Decries Illegal Iraq Detainees
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 21, 2006

Filed at 5:56 p.m. ET

GENEVA (AP) -- Some 15,000 detainees are being held in Iraq by government ministries in violation of Iraqi law, and nearly as many are being held by U.S.-led multinational forces, a senior U.N. official said Friday.

Only the country's justice ministry is permitted to hold detainees for longer than 72 hours, but Gianni Magazzeni, head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in Baghdad, said most Iraqi-held detainees are under the control of other government officials, naming Iraq's interior and defense ministries in particular.

''Those are still in the thousands and would be not in a situation which is in line with Iraqi law,'' he said at the U.N.'s European headquarters in Geneva. Magazzeni, who took over the post in mid-February, was visiting Geneva and said he was on his way back to Baghdad. It was unclear where Magazzeni obtained his figures for detainees held by the Iraqi government.

He said the 14,222 detainees being held by multinational forces in Iraq at the end of February for ''imperative reasons of security'' also is ''way too high.''

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Iraq-Rights.html

[Terran1212]

1. "Liberated" Iraq is something else!