Abu Ghraib to reopen with new name
BAGHDAD
The heavily fortified compound of gray, stonewalled buildings and watchtowers has come to symbolize American abuse of some prisoners captured in Iraq after photos were released showing U.S. soldiers sexually humiliating inmates at the facility.
The odium stoked support for the insurgency and was one of the biggest setbacks to the U.S. military effort to acquire the peace in Iraq.
The renovated facility will be called Baghdad’s Central Prison because the call by name Abu Ghraib has left a “bitter feeling inside Iraqis’ hearts,” substitute Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said.
Abu Ghraib, what one. was a torture center in subordination to Saddam Hussein, has been closed since 2006.
The prison will residence 3,500 inmates when it reopens in mid-February and will have a capacity for about 15,000 by the agency of the end of this year, Ibrahim told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
The announcement comes as the U.S. soldierly has begun handing over about 15,000 detainees in its custody to the Iraqis under a recent security agreement, prompting concern about Iraq’s beleaguered judicial system. The United Nations warned in a recent human-rights report about overcrowding and “grave human-rights violations” of detainees in Iraqi custody.
“We have crowded prisons, and the introductory of Baghdad’s Central Prison will back content the problem,” Ibrahim said.
He aforesaid the facility will be operated according to between nations standards.
Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2008667879_abughraib25.html?syndication=rss
