New Abu Ghraib Images Screened

Guardian

Mark Oliver

Wednesday February 15, 2006

Previously unpublished images showing the apparent abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 were broadcast today by an Australian television station.

Still and video images were broadcast on Dateline, a current affairs programme on SBS television, which appeared to show dead Iraqis and detainees being tortured by US troops.

In one piece of footage an Iraqi prisoner was seen slamming his head repeatedly into a metal door. A still image showed a naked detainee with multiple injuries to his buttocks. There was also film of naked male prisoners being forced to masturbate in front of a camera.

Some of the new images showed US soldiers who have already been convicted over the abuse scandal at the prison, which is just outside Baghdad, including Private Lynndie England and Charles Graner.

The original photographs of abuse - which included an image of a hooded prisoner with electric wires attached to their arms and piles of naked detainees arranged in "pyramids" - caused worldwide outrage when they were leaked to US current affairs programme 60 Minutes in 2004.

For its programme today, Dateline interviewed US Congress members who had been given a private viewing of all the images depicting abuse from Abu Ghraib, some of which have previously not been published by the media.

There were reports today that the US government was trying to prevent the new images being broadcast in the US.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1710360,00.html