officers involved in the illegal torture of detainees at secret prisons in Baghdad and other cities recently fled to neighbouring Iran and do not intend to return, according to a report in an Iraqi daily.
Iran Focus
The daily al-Siadah Iraq wrote on Monday that seven of the officers were accused of torturing detainees in the secret jails which belonged to the Interior Ministry.
The report said that upon learning that they could face prosecution under the next Iraqi government, the officers fled to Iran two days ago.
An official inquiry into the torture of more than 170 Iraqi prisoners in the secret Jaderiya detention centre in Baghdad, which belonged to the Interior Ministry, found that prison officials had close ties with neighbouring Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The inquiry was conducted by Iraqs Deputy Prime Minister Rowsch Nouri Shaways, who is one of the leaders of Massoud Barzanis Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP).
The investigation found that prison officials operated on the direct orders of Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, a senior official in the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).
More significantly, the inquiry established that a key figure in the torture operation was an Iranian national with several aliases, including Abu-Karam Alvandi, according to the Iraqi official who read Shaways report.
Several of the 13 officers that have now fled to Iran had the ranks of Colonel. One of them would likely have faced charges of terrorism in Iraq as well, while another officer was accused of peeling the skin off those arrested in the jails.
The report added that, separately, the chief financial officer in the Interior Ministry had also recently fled to Iran, taking with him U.S. $500,000.
