NY human rights group describes routine torture of Iraqi detainees at secret prison

NY human rights group says Iraq torture routine

NEW YORK — A New York-based human rights group says the torture of Iraqi detainees at a makeshift Baghdad prison housing mostly Sunnis was routine and systematic.

Human Rights Watch reported on its website Tuesday it interviewed 42 men who were among 300 detainees transferred from the secret Iraqi prison after its existence was revealed.

The group says the detainees were accused of abetting terrorism. It says they described horrific acts in which they were deprived of air, beaten, given electric shocks and sodomized.

Reports of the torture have outraged Iraq’s Sunni minority, who see it as another example of persecution by the country’s Shiite-led government.

Iraqi officials are investigating the torture claims. They say three Iraqi army officers have been arrested in the case.