New Abu Ghraib abuse pictures released

Australian public broadcaster SBS released previously unpublished photographs showing apparent U.S. abuse of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail, BBC reported.

The pictures, which include a man with his throat slit, another with massive head wounds and a third covered in faeces, were from the same source as of other photographs that provoked outrage around the world.

SBS said that pictures were among several others that will be broadcast at the "Dateline" programme at 8:30 pm (0930 GMT) on Wednesday. A spokesman said that SBS was "confident in the credibility of the source of these new photographs and videos".

"These images reveal further widespread abuse including new incidents of homicide, torture and sexual humiliation," SBS said. "The extent of the abuse shown in the photos suggests that the torture and abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib in 2004 is much worse than is currently understood."

The new images are part of a group of more than 100 photographs and four videos taken at Abu Ghraib jail and later handed to the U.S. army's Criminal Investigations Division. Some of the pictures showed U.S. soldiers who have already been convicted in the abuse case, including Private Lynndie England and Charles Graner, the ringleader in the scandal.

The news comes days after the British government announced it has launched an "urgent" probe into a video tape showing British soldiers abusing and mercilessly beating four Iraqi teenagers.

One of the videos showed U.S. soldiers forcing prisoners to masturbate in front of the camera. Another footage showed a detainee hitting his head against a wall, and another man displayed what appeared to be burn marks on his left forearm.

Another picture showed a naked prisoner hanging upside down from a bunk bed and another, hooded and bound in an orange jumpsuit, apparently being threatened by a dog.

The photographs, some of which had been posted on the SBS website, are the subject of a legal battle to prevent their publication in the United States, SBS said.

"When the original Abu Ghraib photographs were leaked to the press, members of Congress were given a private viewing of photographs including the images which appear in this Dateline programme….They were shocked by what these extra images revealed of the full horror of the abuses taking place at Abu Ghraib," SBS said.

A U.S. Judge ruled in September that the Abu Ghraib abuse pictures should be released under the Freedom of Information Act. He was responding to a request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for access to 87 unseen photos. 

"The photographs have to be released so the public have some idea of what happened at Abu Ghraib,” ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh told SBS Dateline. “It is for the public to decide on looking at them what needs to be done."

SBS also defended broadcasting the images. Mike Carey, executive producer of Dateline, told AFP news agency they would be broadcast "because it is an important matter of public interest that the full story of abuse at Abu Ghraib be told".

Washington has been facing mounting international criticism over the number of suspects it holds and the conditions at its prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the world. The U.S., moreover, came under increasing scrutiny after media reports revealed it was holding an unknown number of suspects in secret locations overseas, refusing either to acknowledge the detentions or to give information on the fate or the whereabouts of those detainees.

Last month, the U.S. President George W. Bush said in an interview that the Abu Ghraib abuse was a “disgrace”.

The Pentagon launched several investigations into the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal. Only nine low-ranking soldiers have been convicted, some are serving jail sentences. All top American commanders have so far been cleared of any crime.