US forces have released the head of a psychiatric hospital in Baghdad after holding him for two months on suspicion of supplying mental patients to al Qaeda for suicide bombings, a health official said.

"The US forces released him yesterday after taking a bond from me to bring him any time they need him," said Ali Bustan, head of the health directorate for the eastern half of Baghdad. Sahi al-Maliki, acting director of the al-Rashad psychiatric hospital in eastern Baghdad, was held by US forces in a raid on the hospital in February, 10 days after two bombings in popular pet markets killed 99 people and wounded more than 150.

US and Iraqi officials said at the time they believed the bombings were carried out by female teenaged mental patients who became unwitting suicide bombers in an operation planned by al Qaeda Sunni Arab militants.

Bustan said Maliki had only started working at the hospital in mid-January and would not have had time to hand over patients to al Qaeda for a suicide bomb plot. "He is innocent, this is why they released him," he added.

A spokesman for US military detention operations was not immediately available for comment.