BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that it had brought the first-ever charges of torture against members of the Iraqi police, who are accused of close ties to the Shiite death squads whose daily abductions and killings fuel the sectarian violence convulsing the country.
Authorities reported finding the bodies of a dozen apparent death squad victims floating in the Tigris River south of Baghdad.
Shiite death squads are generally thought to be behind such killings, hundreds of which have been recorded in Baghdad alone since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in February ignited the explosion of sectarian revenge killings.
Some officers on the Shiite-dominated police force are accused of abetting the violence by allowing the gunmen to violate curfews and pass through checkpoints.
Torture is considered widespread among the poorly trained police force, which has suffered heavy losses at the hands of Sunni insurgents, Shiite militiamen and criminal gangs.
Such concerns were underscored by the discovery of a police torture chamber in Baghdad last year, and by the apparent complicity of police in a mass kidnapping of Sunni workers that prompted authorities to take an entire police brigade out of service for retraining.
The torture that led to the charges described Tuesday took place at a prison in eastern Baghdad called Site No. 4, the Interior Ministry said.
The police charged and removed from their job include a general, 19 officers, 20 noncommissioned officers and 17 patrolmen or civilian employees.
Their names were being withheld, but ministry spokesman Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf said the general had received administrative punishment and would face criminal charges.
Khalaf declined to give details about specific abuses or what sentences the policemen could receive if found guilty.
"All of these people will stand trial and the court will decide their fate," Khalaf said. .......
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