New Abu Ghraib abuse photos emerge

An Australian television station broadcast yesterday what it said were previously unpublished images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, fuelling more Arab anger against the US.

The Special Broadcasting Service's Dateline current affairs programme said the images were recorded at the same time as the now-infamous pictures of US soldiers abusing Abu Ghraib detainees which sparked international outrage in 2004.

Some of the newly broadcast pictures suggest further abuse such as killing, torture and sexual humiliation, Dateline said.

The grainy, still photographs and video images show prisoners, some bleeding or hooded, bound to beds and doors, sometimes with a smiling American guard beside them.

They include two naked men handcuffed together, a pile of five naked detainees photographed from the rear, and a dog straining at a leash close to the face of a crouching man wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.

The images were swiftly rebroadcast by Arab satellite television stations and several news organisations, including American ABC News television, showed them on their websites.

They stirred up more anger among Arabs, already incensed by the publication on Sunday of images of British soldiers apparently beating Iraqi youths and by cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammad printed in European papers this month.

"This is truly American ugliness that no other country in the world can compete with," journalist Saleh al-Humaidi said in Yemen.

"The Americans ought to apologise to mankind for their government's lie to the world that it is fighting for freedom and that it came to Iraq to save it from Saddam Hussein's oppression," he said.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the abuses at Abu Ghraib had already been fully investigated and publication of the latest pictures would trigger needless violence.

"The department believes that the release of all of these images will further inflame and cause unnecessary violence in the world," Mr Whitman said.

"...In Abu Ghraib specifically, there have been more than 25 individuals - officer and enlisted - that have been held accountable for criminal acts and other failures."

Dateline executive producer Mike Carey said the programme had obtained a file containing hundreds of pictures - some that have been seen before and others that show new abuses.

He declined to say where or how the station had got hold of the images, but said he assumed other journalists or media also had access to them.

Several pictures appear to show US soldier Charles Graner, who was jailed for 10 years for his leading role in the Abu Ghraib abuse and who featured in the earlier batch of photographs. Graner's former lover, Lynndie England, was sentenced to three years for her part.