US: Iraqis detained by US troops accused their captors of torture and degrading treatment, rights group Amnesty International reported yesterday, calling on the occupying forces to bring human rights violators to justice.
Detainees also said US troops had shot some captives, the London-based rights watchdog reported, in a study based on interviews with former prisoners of US forces across Iraq.
Amnesty staff heard complaints that included prolonged sleep deprivation and detainees being forced to stay in painful positions or wear hoods over their heads for long periods.
"These conditions, taken together, would amount to torture as defined by UN standards," Amnesty's deputy executive director in the US, Mr Curt Goering, told a news conference.
"Amnesty International is urging the coalition forces here to undertake an investigation into these allegations and, if found substantiated, must bring those responsible to justice." Amnesty said it discussed its report with US authorities in Iraq, and described talks so far as "mixed".
"There is an acknowledgement that there are some serious problems," he said. "Yet at the same time, on some fundamental issues, there is a difference of opinion on what laws apply."
US military officials were not immediately available to comment on the report. But their British allies in the war that deposed Saddam Hussein said they would study the report.
"Of course we take very seriously any such allegations by an organisation like Amnesty," British Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw told BBC radio.
"I will study the allegations and the evidence behind them with very great care and if . . . I think it appropriate I shall also ensure they are discussed with the Americans."
Amnesty staff gathered testimony from former detainees and from relatives of some still held. The group said it was concerned about the treatment of detainees, saying they often did not have quick enough access to lawyers, and were sometimes mistreated.
"We have found that after being taken into custody, individuals have effectively disappeared for unacceptably long periods of time," Mr Goering said. "Despite extensive efforts to establish their whereabouts, at the end of the day \ still cannot determine where their relatives are being held."
Amnesty said US forces, which have been struggling to impose law and order since occupying Iraq, repeatedly denied it permission to visit detention centres.
The rights group has said thousands were being held in prisons run by US troops, including Abu Ghraib, one of the most feared jails under Saddam, and Camp Cropper, near Baghdad airport.
"Detainees continue to report suffering extreme heat while housed in tents, insufficient water, inadequate washing facilities, open trenches for toilets, no change of clothes, even after two months' detention," Amnesty said. It said it had received several reports of cases of detainees who had died in custody, "mostly as a result of shooting by members of the coalition forces".
Amnesty said the US-led troops' "window of opportunity" was rapidly closing to win over Iraqis, and feared a growing problem of human rights violations.
"One cannot be a popular occupier if you are becoming at that very time a human rights violator," Mr Goering said.