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Children among Abu Ghraib prisoners: US

WASHINGTON: A boy no older than 11 was among the children held by the US army at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, the former US commander of the facility told a general investigating abuses at the prison.

Brig Gen Janis Karpinski did not say what happened to the boy or why he was imprisoned, according to a transcript of her interview with Maj Gen George Fay that was released by the American Civil Liberties Union. The transcript of the May 2004 interview was among hundreds of pages of documents about Iraq prisoner abuses the group made public Thursday after getting them under the Freedom of Information Act. Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Ghraib from July to November 2003, said she often visited the prison’s youngest inmates. One boy “looked like he was 8-years-old,” Karpinski said.

“He told me he was almost 12,” Karpinski said. “He told me his brother was there with him, but he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother. He was crying.” Military officials have acknowledged that some juvenile prisoners had been held at Abu Ghraib. But the transcript is the first documented evidence of a child no older than 11 being held prisoner. The documents include statements from six witnesses who said three interrogators and a civilian interpreter at Abu Ghraib got drunk one night and took a 17-year-old female prisoner from her cell. The men forced the girl to expose her breasts and kissed her, the reports said. The witnesses said those responsible were not punished. ap

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