Concern over classification of prisoners

The United States is trying to sidestep its obligations under the Geneva Convention by creating new categories of prisoners it is holding in Iraq, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) spokesman has warned. In Iraq, the US military has categorised about 4,000 of its prisoners as "security detainees", a classification not covered by the Geneva Conventions, a set of international war rules agreed to by many countries, according to HRW. "A 'security detainee' is any individual who has committed a crime against US-led coalition forces," US Brig-Gen Janis Karpinsky, who is in charge of all detainees in Iraq, told IRIN in the capital, Baghdad. Also held by coalition forces, according to Karpinsky, are third-country nationals, "high-interest detainees" and enemy prisoners of war (POWs). Of those three classifications, only enemy POWs were covered by the Geneva Conventions, HRW said. "Prisoners are taken into the system, and within 72 hours they’re given an initial review, and a determination is made on their status," Karpinsky said. "Depending on the category, they’re afforded the opportunity for a magistrate review, or a tribunal," she added. According to Peter Bouckaert, a senior researcher at HRW, it is the label that is a problem. "Creating new categories could come back to haunt US forces in the long run," he told IRIN in Baghdad. "The US authorities are trying to fudge their Geneva Conventions obligations by creating categories of prisoners that simply don't exist under international law," he maintained. "Their actions undermine a very important system of international law." However, Karpinsky said legal "due process" was more important than the international rules. For example, "tribunals" were conducted for prisoners about once every six months, she said, although she declined to describe exactly what such tribunals entailed or where they were being held. "I think the main complaint that people might have is that due process might have been delayed. But we’re clearing that. We’ve been doing the right thing, just not as quickly as some people would like," Karpinsky asserted. From a US military point of view, anyone classified as a "security detainee" must have done something pretty bad, according to Karpinsky. The classification appears to cover prisoners ranging from members of the elite of Saddam Hussein's former regime whose names figure on the "list of 55" wanted people to people who have fired rocket-propelled grenades or other weapons at US troops. "Some of them will be charged with war crimes possibly, some of them will be charged with crimes against the coalition, simply security threats, or could be charged with terrorism or acts against Iraq particularly," Karpinsky explained. "No matter what their crime, the prisoner-of-war system was created to set a clear set of standards governing the treatment of all detainees in wartime," Bouckaert asserted, adding that the new categories created by the US did not have a legal basis within the Geneva Convention and could be used to classify any combatant as a criminal. Many of the security detainees are being interrogated by US military intelligence officers. Karpinsky said those officers were using accepted international interrogation methods, including turning bright lights on 24 hours per day. In May and June, when temperatures regularly rose above 43 degrees centigrade, Karpinsky said there was no air-conditioning and few latrines. "I can tell you there’s sometimes a light on all the time, but there is no torture, there is no abuse, there is no violent extraction of information in any of our facilities," she stated. Karpinsky also admitted that conditions for prisoners were not of the best, but pointed out that many US-led coalition troops lived under the same conditions. "You can’t keep prisoners at a level of treatment or housing or feeding that is vastly different than the coalition members are living," she noted. "We’re doing everything possible, given the situation and the setting, that they’re being treated humanely," she added. Even though the detainees are not all classified as POWs, they are all being made available to be interviewed by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), a rule of the Geneva Conventions, according to Nada Doumani, the ICRC spokeswoman in Baghdad. "Any problems the ICRC finds with their treatment [of prisoners] are addressed back to military officials," Doumani told IRIN, declining, however, to give any specifics. Doumani emphasised, however, that the ICRC was working to get messages from detainees to their families, as provided for by the Geneva Conventions. Some would also soon be allowed to receive packages, she said.