US admits imprisoning adolescents in Iraq

The US army admits for the first time to having detained adolescents in its prisons in Iraq, according to a German press report.

The TV magazine "Report Mainz," to be broadcast Monday evening on the ARD network, quoted Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the US troops in Iraq, as saying that they still imprisoned 58 Iraqis in the age of from 14 and 17.

The Iraqi adolescents are held in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and"Camp Bucca" and the length of their average imprisonment is half a year, Johnson said.

Johnson denied that those adolescents were tortured and promised that US authorities would look into accusation of mishandling if it arose.

Quoting sources from the International Red Cross and the UN Children’s Fund, the "Report Mainz" reported on July 5 that US troops had detained Iraqi adolescents for so-called anti-occupation activities and often mistreated them.

Meanwhile, the German chapter of the Amnesty International hascalled for an independent investigation into the allegations of torturing Iraqi adolescents by American soldiers. Enditem (Xinhuanet)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-07/27/content_1653018.htm