High-value PoWs in solitary confinement

At least as of February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorised by US officials as ‘‘high value detainees’’ because of the special intelligence they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells without sunlight, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the Geneva Convention.

Under arrangements in effect since last October, military officials said at a Pentagon briefing on Friday, explicit authorisation from the American commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, has been required in each of about 25 cases in which Iraqi prisoners have been subjected to isolation for longer than 30 days. But on Sunday, a senior military officer said that statement did not apply to the prisoners being held at the airport, because ‘‘we were not the authority’’ for the high-value detainees.

The officer referred questions about high-value prisoners to the US Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, where a spokesman said he could not answer them on Sunday. Defence Department officials said the principal responsibility for high-value prisoners to the Iraq Survey Group. The so-called ‘‘high-value Iraqi detainees’’ do not include Saddam Hussein, who was not captured until last December and is being held by the FBI elsewhere in Iraq, American government officials have said. They say Saddam has also been held in isolation. —(NYT)