Iraq to free 2500, but no 'Saddam loyalists'

BAGHDAD - Iraq's new prime minister announced he would release 2500 prisoners in an apparent bid to shore up his own authority amid signs of tension in his ruling Shi'ite Alliance.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has pledged to heal sectarian wounds and crush a Sunni Arab insurgency, said the prisoner release would free those who had no clear evidence against them or had been mistakenly detained.

Initially, 500 people will be released on Wednesday, he said, but did not give details. Many of those in prison are from ousted President Saddam Hussein's once dominant Sunni community.

"Those who will be released will be people who are not Saddam Hussein loyalists or terrorists or anyone who has Iraqi blood on their hands," said Maliki, who took office on May 20 at the helm of a US-backed government of national unity.

Maliki had cited the release of those imprisoned without just cause as one of his priorities when his cabinet took office in May. Such detentions, by Iraqi and US security forces, have been a major source of popular discontent with government.

Tuesday's announcement came amid comments from anonymous political sources that rivals in the Shi'ite Alliance, which dominates the government, have blocked efforts to name interior and defence ministers and believe the government may not endure.

Both portfolios have been vacant since the government was sworn in and some Alliance members outside Maliki's Dawa party believe it cannot last more than six months.

Maliki said no nominees were presented to parliament last Sunday as scheduled because there was not a sufficient number of assembly members present for a vote.

"But in the next session we will do it," the Shi'ite Islamist leader said. He did not specify when this would be, but state television said it would be held on Thursday.

The prisoners would be released from US-run detention centres and Iraqi custody, Maliki said.

"Those who committed killings or bombings will not be released," he said.

A critical UN human rights report last month said that there were 28,700 detainees in Iraq, including 5000 held by the Interior Ministry even though it should only detain people for short periods of time.

"Torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment are allegedly common practice in some facilities," it said.

The urgency in appointing ministers who can start tackling relentless violence was underscored by the discovery of nine severed heads in a volatile area north of Baghdad, the second such find in the last few days in Diyala province.

Police in Baquba said nine heads were found in cardboard crates in the city's northern al-Hadid district, three days after the cut-off heads of seven cousins and a Sunni Arab Imam were found by the side of the road near Baquba.

Baquba is the capital of Diyala, a religiously mixed area that has seen frequent guerrilla attacks aimed at toppling the Shi'ite-led government and other sectarian bloodshed.

In Baghdad, bombing, mortar and shooting attacks killed at least 15 people. In the worst incident, five people died when a car bomb exploded near a tent where a funeral reception was being held in a southwestern district.

The formation of Maliki's broad coalition government, including both minority Sunnis and Kurds, raised hopes in Iraq and abroad that it would be able to rein in the violence.

But bloodshed that seems to spare no one is showing no signs of abating.

"The situation is difficult, very, very difficult," said a Shi'ite Alliance source outside Maliki's party. "There is more than a 60 per cent chance that (the government) ... will not continue. The government is not up to it."

- REUTERS