US to release 300 Abu Ghraib prisoners
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-06 02:15

About 300 detainees will be released from Abu Ghraib prison this week, the latest group to be freed from the detention facility west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Monday.

Iraqi prisoners being released from the Abu Ghraib prison, wave from a bus as their vehicle rushes away from the prision doors.[AFP]

Released prisoners embrace in Ramadi after arriving from the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq Monday, July 5, 2004. Some 300 detainees are being released Monday and Tuesday from the notorious prison. [AP]

The detainees will be set free on Monday and Tuesday, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson told The Associated Press.

Some 5,500 other detainees remain in custody, Johnson said. About 2,200 are held at Abu Ghraib, and 2,700 are being held at Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in the far south of the country, he said.

Others are at smaller facilities around the country where they "are initially screened to determine whether they should be processed for detention or released," Johnson said.

Abu Ghraib was at the center of a scandal over allegations that American prison guards abused Iraqi detainees. The scandal came to light in April when photographs of hooded and naked prisoners were made public, provoking a torrent of international criticism.

U.S. authorities have released more than 2,000 detainees from Abu Ghraib in the last two months.

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