An Iraqi man sits against a mural based on the scandal of prisoner abuse in the prison of Abu Ghraib

GENEVA , June 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.N. human rights body stressed Friday, June 4, that any fair tribunal would designate as "war crimes" human rights violations by U.S. occupation forces against Iraqi detainees, particularly in Abu Ghraib prison.

In a fact-finding report, Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan blasted "willful killing, torture [and] inhuman treatment" of Iraqi detainees in Abu Gharib, reported Reuters.

He stressed such abuses were not only grave violations of international law but "might be designated as war crimes by a competent tribunal."

The abuse scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the CBS news network published several graphic photos  of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by U.S. soldiers.

The 45-page report cited one former Abu Ghraib detainee, Saddam Abood Al-Rawi, as telling U.N. investigators he was subjected to 18 days of torture at the U.S.-run prison.

This included the pulling of teeth, kicking and beating and threats of rape, and warnings he would be killed if he told a visiting International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) team about his treatment.

The Washington Post on Saturday, May 22, published testimony of soldiers speaking of fun and sadistic pleasure in abusing prisoners.

A day earlier it published a new photo gallery and a video clip of Iraqis being beaten and sexually humiliated.

It also published sworn statements by assaulted and sexually abused prisoners. (Click here to read the statements).

Rawi, 29, recalled suffering physical torture when held at an Iraqi prison under ousted president Saddam Hussein.

But under U.S.-led occupation forces, he was additionally subjected to "humiliation and mental cruelty."

Iraqi prisoners who were set free from Abu Ghraib prison had called for issuing an international arrest warrant for U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his trial over their abuse.

The American New Yorker magazine dropped a bombshell Sunday, May 16, saying the torture was okayed by Rumsfeld.

Immunity

Ramcharan also documented the jailing of large numbers of Iraqis without anyone's knowledge and without any reasons being given.

His report cited Iraqis interviewed in Amman as speaking of "arbitrary arrests and detention as an ongoing phenomenon" since the invasion.

In its annual report issued Wednesday, May 26, Amnesty International said "thousands of people were detained in the context of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation of Iraq by the Coalition Provisional Authority."

Ramcharan regretted that the U.S.-led forces were able to act with impunity and urged the appointment of an independent figure to monitor their behavior.

"The serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law that have taken place (since U.S. and British troops invaded Iraq in March last year) must not be allowed to recur," he added.

The Observer reported on Sunday, May 23, that U.S.-British forces in Iraq are to enjoy immunity from being prosecuted in Iraq after the planned power transfer to an Iraqi interim government, stealing away the right of Iraqis to sue them over abuses and other war crimes.

The United States has refused to sign a 1998 treaty creating the world's first permanent global war crimes tribunal.

The U.S. was one of 135 nations to sign the treaty under former President Bill Clinton but the Bush administration rescinded the signature.

Light Criticism

Ramcharan's report claimed that "everyone accepts the good intentions of the coalition governments as regards the behavior of their forces in Iraq ."

This drew immediate criticism from Reed Brody, special counsel to the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.

"It seems very light, and to bend over backwards to accept the good faith of the U.S. ," he told Reuters by telephone.

"I don't think it is the place of the U.N. human rights office to evaluate the intentions of a state or group of states."

Ramcharan's spokesman, Jose Luis Diaz, denied there had been any outside effort to have the report watered down.

"There was no pressure on this office," he told Reuters.