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New Abu Ghraib abuse photos broadcast in Australia
ABC News/Reuters
By Michael Perry
February 15, 2006

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian television station broadcast on Wednesday what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, stoking more Arab anger against the United States.

The Special Broadcasting Service's "Dateline" current affairs program said the images had been recorded at the same time as the now-infamous photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing detainees in Abu Ghraib which sparked international outrage in 2004.

Some of the newly broadcast pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation, Dateline said.

The grainy still photographs and video images, which were swiftly re-broadcast by Arab satellite television stations, show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling guard beside them.

They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.

The pictures stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad printed in European papers.

"This is truly American ugliness that no other country in the world can compete with," Yemeni journalist Saleh al-Humaidi told Reuters.

"The Americans ought to apologize to mankind for their government's lie to the world that it is fighting for freedom and that it came to Iraq to save it from Saddam Hussein's oppression," he said.

NEW ABUSES

Executive producer Mike Carey said Dateline had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures — some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.

He declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images, but said he assumed other journalists or media also had access to them.

Several pictures appear to show U.S. soldier Charles Graner, who was jailed in January for 10 years for his leading role in the Abu Ghraib abuse revealed in the earlier batch of photographs. Graner's former lover, Lynndie England, was sentenced to three years for her part.

Some of the video footage apparently shows one prisoner bashing his own head against a wall, while some photographs appear to show corpses, said Carey.

The program said some prisoners at Abu Ghraib had been killed when U.S. soldiers ran out of rubber bullets as they tried to quell a jail riot, and resorted to using live rounds.

One picture showed what looked like cigarette burns on a man's buttocks.

Carey said other images featured prisoners in sexually humiliating acts that were deemed too graphic to broadcast.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has been granted access to the images under U.S. Freedom of Information provisions, but the U.S. government is appealing the decision, Dateline said.

ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh told Dateline the images were evidence of "systemic and widespread abuse" by U.S. soldiers.

The latest pictures will put more pressure on the United States over its treatment of detainees.

Five U.N. human rights experts have urged Washington to shut down the jail at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after concluding that forced-feeding of prisoners and some interrogation techniques there amounted to acts of torture.

"These are disgusting pictures … it's not strange for Americans to do such things. They've done it in Guantanamo and every prison that is under their control," said Mounir al-Mamari, an engineer in Yemen.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ghobari in Sanaa)

Copyright 2006 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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