US embassy cable - 05BAGHDAD2547

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 002547 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM REO MOSUL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/16/2025 
TAGS: PHUM, PTER, MOPS, IZ, Human Rights, Detainees 
SUBJECT: ISLAMIC HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION ALLEGES IRAQI 
FORCES DETAINEE ABUSE IN NINEWA 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Robert S. Ford. 
Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D). 
 
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Summary 
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1.  (C) Members of the Islamic Organization for Human 
Rights (IOHR) told Poloff June 9 that abuse of 
detainees by Iraqi Police (IP) occurs regularly.  The 
group has investigated at least 25 specific 
allegations of torture and abuse, compiled into a 
public report, associated with a group of police 
commandos known as the Wolf Brigade.  The IOHR 
representatives said they had not received complaints 
about Coalition Forces treatment of detainees, though 
they did accuse Coalition soldiers of excesses and 
disrespectful behavior during operations and said they 
held the Coalition, as an occupying force, as 
ultimately responsible for all human rights 
violations.  The group requested assistance in 
arranging visits to both Iraqi and Coalition detention 
facilities.  The organization's members came across as 
credible, and their allegations about the Wolf Brigade 
are consistent with other reporting.  U.S. officials 
have raised these allegations with Mosul officials. 
Local authorities and the police evince determination 
to improve the situation, but they want help from the 
Ministry of Justice and the judicial system.  End 
summary. 
 
2.  (C) Regional Embassy Office Mosul Poloff met on 
June 8 with IOHR representatives Haarith Ibraheem 
(IOHR director), Usama Sadi (deputy director), and 
Qais Abdulwahab Issa (an IOHR member and REO Mosul IV 
nominee).  Ibraheem and Issa are legal professors in 
the Mosul area and Sadi has a master's degree in 
international law. 
 
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An Islamic Human Rights Organization 
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3. () The IOHR was founded just after the fall of 
the former regime, which had prohibited human rights 
organizations, and has its main offices in Mosul and a 
branch in Baghdad.  Ibraheem said that volunteers 
formed the organization to document human rights 
abuses.  Sadi said the group had regularly visited 
jails and prisons in the Mosul area, including the 
main Coalition detention facility, prior to the 
November 2004 outbreak of insurgent activity.  Sadi 
said the group's methodology requires multiple sources 
for documenting abuse, usually with eyewitnesses, 
second hand sources, and photographic evidence. 
According to the group's literature, they have issued 
several reports on detainee conditions in Mosul, the 
western Ninewa city of Tel Afer, and Abu Ghraib 
prison.  Ibraheem said his organization participated 
in an international human rights conference in Jordan 
last September at which he started up contacts with 
international human rights NGOs such as Amnesty 
International and Human Rights Watch as well as the 
United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). 
 
4.  (C) Philosophically, the group claims an Islamic 
conception of human rights emanating from the freedoms 
granted by Allah.  The representatives said they 
subscribe to most international human rights standards 
except for women's rights, which has a distinct 
treatment in the Koran.  The group claims to defend 
all people regardless of religion or ethnicity; the 
group's reports, for example, do not identify the 
victims by faith or ethnic group.  The representatives 
stated their complete rejection of terrorism.  They 
denied any affiliation to political parties, though 
they conceded that the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) often 
lobbies authorities to let IOHR conduct prison visits. 
 
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Allegations Against the 2nd Iraqi Police Commandos 
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5.  (C) The group released in May a new report 
documenting 25 cases of detainee abuse, the majority 
of which are related to the 2nd Iraqi Police Commandos 
Unit, known as the Wolf Brigade, that was stationed in 
Mosul earlier this year.  Sadi claimed that six 
detainee deaths occurred as a result of torture.  The 
group described practices such as use of stun guns, 
hanging suspects from their wrists with arms behind 
back, holding detainees in basements with human waste, 
and beatings.  Sadi said interrogators also reportedly 
threatened detainees with demeaning acts against their 
wives and sisters, a particularly flagrant violation 
to a Muslim.  Sadi said some detainees were forced to 
confess to crimes -- not all related to terrorism, 
Sadi admitted -- they did not commit as a result of 
this treatment.  (Note:  REO Mosul forwarded this 
report in Arabic to Embassy Baghdad for translation. 
End note.) 
 
6.  (C) Issa said that Iraqi Police continue to 
violate detainees' rights to due process and 
presumption of innocence.  He said Mosul judges had 
issued release orders for some detainees only to have 
them ignored by the Mosul Chief of Police.  Issa said 
even after the decision is made not to charge 
detainees with a crime, they are turned over to Iraqi 
Police facilities for a week before release, during 
which time abuse occurs. (Note: Iraqi officials 
recently visited the MNF-NW Detention facility, the 
Mosul Regional Correctional Facility and the Police 
stations.  In the first two instances, provincial 
council representatives noted that the detainees were 
treated well.  In the case of the police facilities, 
the PC noted overcrowding and unsanitary conditions 
attributable to the lack of effort by Iraqi courts to 
try the cases of almost 1000 detainees in Ninewah. 
 They also noted allegations of abuse mostly 
attributable to the Wolf Brigade but also the local 
police.  End Note.) 
 
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Coalition Forces Mistreat and Disrespect Iraqis 
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7.  (C) Asked whether they alleged abuse of detainees 
by Coalition Forces, the group said they believed 
detainees are treated with respect, though they noted 
they had not been permitted to enter a Coalition 
facility since November.  Ibraheem said IOHR holds the 
Coalition, as an occupying force, responsible for all 
human rights abuses that occur.  Ibraheem mentioned 
that the Coalition was holding four or five women from 
the Mosul area, which he said is particularly 
offensive for Muslims.  Poloff reminded them that the 
Coalition monitors such issues closely, provides human 
rights training for IP, and intervenes when cases 
merit.  Issa accused Coalition soldiers of excesses 
during operations, including the indiscriminant 
shooting of civilians, disrespect of civilians during 
raids, and theft of property.  Issa alleged that his 
own father and brother were shot by Coalition Forces 
months earlier as they were driving through the 
infamous Yarmuk Traffic Circle in Mosul, a favorite 
target for insurgent IEDs. 
 
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Request to Visit Jails and Prisons 
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8.  (C) The IOHR said their two objectives are to 
resume visits to Coalition and Iraqi detention 
facilities and to bring about prosecutions of human 
rights violators within the IP.  They said they had 
yet to be granted access to detention centers in Irbil 
in Kurdistan where some detainees are taken.  Sadi 
said he had tried to be included in a visit by a 
Provincial Council Member to the Coalition facility at 
Mosul Airfield three weeks earlier but was denied 
entry.  Task Force Freedom (TFF) told him to clear his 
request for a visit with the Ninewa Provincial 
Government, but he has yet to receive a response. 
 
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Human Rights Committee Active 
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9.  (C) The Ninewah Provincial Council Human Rights 
Committee is now actively following all of the 
detention facilities and has good oversight of the 
detention operations.  Their engagement has 
contributed to the government efforts to: 
 
--transfer 384 prisoners awaiting trial from police 
custody to the MRCF (relieve overcrowding in the 
police jail) 
--transfer 334 prisoners to the Transportation Jail to 
await trial (relieve overcrowding in the police jail) 
--send 100 prisoners to Baghdad to be tried there 
(where legal capacity is better than Mosul) 
 
In addition, MNF-NW is: 
 
--conducting a detention training program to improve 
quality of standards for detention 
--meeting with Governor, Vice Governor and Police 
Chief to remind all parties that the judgments of 
Iraqi courts must be respected and the conditions of 
detainment must be improved. 
 
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Comment 
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10.  (C) Whatever the political agenda of the IOHR, 
its representatives come across as credible and 
qualified.  Their allegations about the Wolf Brigade 
are consistent with other reports received by TFF. 
And to this date a mechanism has not been agreed to by 
TFF, the IA, and the IP for granting NGOs access to 
Iraqi detention facilities.  Gaining access for NGOs 
like IOHR to detention facilities would hopefully 
establish a more rational basis from which to engage 
human rights organizations.  There is a determination 
on the part of both the government and police to 
improve the situation, but to reduce the overcrowding 
(a main contributor to conditions leading to abuse) 
they must have better support from the Minister of 
Justice and an independent Iraqi judiciary to get 
trials going. End comment. 
 
11.  (U) REOs Basrah, Hillah, Kirkuk and Mosul 
minimize considered. 
 
 
Jeffrey