Responding to new broadcast images showing apparent US abuse of prisoners in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail in 2003, Amnesty International today called for a full investigation, extending beyond the Baghdad prison.

Amnesty International said: “There must be a full investigation into these appalling images.

“Contrary to what US officials have said, we have strong reason to believe that these cases of apparent prisoner abuse are by no means isolated incidents.

“Abu Ghraib abuses are not an aberration, but part of a pattern. Abusive interrogation techniques developed for use in Afghanistan and Guantánamo have later emerged in Iraq.

“These have included hooding, sensory deprivation, isolation and the use of stress positions - as well as techniques of humiliation and degradation, including forced shaving, forced nakedness and the use of dogs for intimidation.”

The organisation also called for meaningful efforts to bring all of those responsible for prisoner abuse to justice.

Amnesty International said:

“While a handful of US soldiers have been court-martialled for their role in high-profile abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, senior administration officials have remained free from independent scrutiny, despite having authorised practices amounting to torture or ill-treatment.

“This effective impunity must end.”

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