Baghdad, May 13: Saddam Saleh al-Rawi says he is the man in the picture, the second naked, hooded Iraqi from the right shown on one of the photographs US soldiers took of detainees being softened up which caused international outrage. "The American showed me the photograph, pointed to one of the men, laughed and told me: 'it's you'," said Rawi.
A former inmate released from the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in March, Rawi decided a few days ago to travel from his home in the western province of al-Anbar to testify in Baghdad.
"He is the first former detainee to come to see us claiming he is on one of the photos," said Mohammed Hamid al-Mussawi of the Iraqi Human Rights Association.
"His case seems credible, but we need to investigate to determine whether he was indeed the victim of mistreatment," Mussawi said.
Rawi, 29, pointed to a newspaper carrying one of the infamous pictures, which shows four naked, hooded men. "The second man from the right, that's me," he said.
In front of the detainees, private Lynndie England, a cigarette dangling from her lips, points to the men's genitals.
A former instructor in ousted president Saddam Hussein's elite republican guard, Rawi was Abu Ghraib's prisoner 200144 from December 1, 2003 to March 28, 2004.
He won't say much about why he was arrested, but the claim he was detained is supported by another former prisoner and by his release papers. Bureau Report