Despite US Denials Red Cross confirms riot at US-run prison camp in south Iraq

Prisoners at a US-run detention camp in southern Iraq rioted on April 1, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) confirmed following a denial of the incident by the US military. "There was a riot at Camp Bucca on April 1. An ICRC delegation was there that day on one of its regular prisoner visits and it is now following up the situation," said Christophe Beney, the head of the ICRC's Baghdad delegation. Earlier, a representative of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's movement had revealed that some detainees rioted at Camp Bucca on Friday after one of them had been denied medical treatment. The Sadr representative accused US soldiers of putting down the disturbance with rubber bullets, wounding an undetermined number of detainees. Asked about the Sadr movement's account, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for the US-run detention centres in Iraq, said he was not aware of any such event or riot. "There have been no reports of mistreatment of detainees," Rudisill told AFP. "Nothing like that happened down there. Nobody is denied medical attention down there." [more]

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