Baghdad: The US military has closed Camp Bucca, an isolated desert prison that was once its largest lockup in Iraq, as it moves to release thousands of detainees or transfer them to Iraqi custody before the end of the year.
The sprawling facility just north of the Kuwaiti border has held thousands of men over the years, including the most dangerous in US custody -- Sunni insurgents, Shi’ite extremists and al Qaeda in Iraq suspects swept up from battlefields over six years of war.
Iraqi officials say some who have been freed have returned to violence.
"They`ve been vetted as some of the most dangerous threats not only to Iraq but internationally," said Lt Col Kenneth King, the commander of the Bucca detention facility.
Yesterday, about a dozen of the remaining 180 detainees-- some of whom have been held for three years without charge-- paced in circles around a fenced-in prison yard, dressed in yellow uniforms and sandals under the watch of a guard tower.
One detainee inside a trailer frantically banged on a metal grill covering his window and shouted in Arabic at a group of visiting reporters, "Open the window!"
By midnight, all were to be transferred to either Camp Taji or Camp Cropper just outside Baghdad, the US military`s two remaining detention facilities, while cases are prepared to try to bring them to trial in Iraqi courts.
Sixty-five have already been convicted and are awaiting death sentences, said Brig Gen David Quantock, the commander in charge of the detention system.
Bureau Report
