Reporters without borders (RSF) seems to be too busy these days (the Tibetan issue and the Olympics in Beijing –what’s the link please with the advocacy for the press freedom?!) to pay attention to the last developements in the detention of our AP colleague, the Pulitzer prize winner Bilal Hussein.
Last weeks, an Iraqi judicial panel met twice and dismissed all the criminal allegations against the Iraqi photographer. It ordered it release from the US-run military custody where he has been kept for more than two years.
Photo courtesy AP.
AP writes that “the panel ordered a “halt to all legal proceedings” and said Hussein (…) should be “released immediately” unless he is wanted in connection with something else”.
Bilal’s case enlights the problem of dozens of thousands of Iraqi detainees who should benefit from an amnesty law enacted last February, aiming at moving the country towards national reconciliation (a law US officials commented as a major achievement).
The US say that they intend to review the Iraqi judicial panel’s orders before deciding on releasing the prisonners from custody, and stupulate that their U.N. Security Council mandate allows them to detain anyone in Iraq deemed a security risk to coalition or Iraqi forces, even if an Iraqi judicial body has ordered that prisoner freed.
Like most of the detainees, Bilal was never brought to trial, nor Iraqi or US, nor civilian or military.
To follow the case :
The AP’s site on Bilal Hussein
www.freebilal.org
