The United States-led coalition will release 100 people from Iraqi prisons on Thursday, with hundreds more to be freed in coming weeks, the top US official in Iraq, Paul Bremer, announced in a policy address on Wednesday.
Bremer, with current interim governing council president Adnan Pachachi at his side, also unveiled a programme of rewards of up to $200 000 a head for the capture of more wanted individuals.
A coalition spokesperson later said on condition of anonymity that 506 prisoners were slated to be freed in the next few weeks.
”Tomorrow, the coalition will release the first 100 detainees,” Bremer told reporters in the short speech.
”To give impetus to those Iraqis who wish to reconcile with their countrymen, we are announcing today the coalition will permit hundreds of currently detained Iraqis to return to their homes and to their families.”
Those released will be set free on the understanding they ”must renounce violence” and have ”a guarantor, such as a prominent person in his community or a religious or tribal leader, who will accept responsibility for the good conduct of the individual who is being set free”.
He said those being freed were not directly linked to violence against US forces or other deadly attacks, or involved in torture or crimes against humanity.
”Let me underscore to you an important point. I want to assure you that this is not a programme eligible for those with blood-stained hands. No person involved in the death [of] or serious bodily injury to any human being — an Iraqi, a member of the coalition or anyone else — will be released,” he said.
Those being freed had ”made a mistake and they know it”, Bremer said. ”We are prepared to offer some of them a new chance.”
He added the coalition was exploring ways to provide family members greater access to those who would remain behind bars.
At present, 9 300 people are security detainees, a coalition spokesperson said, not including 3 800 members of the Iranian armed opposition People’s Mujahedeen, which enjoyed Saddam Hussein’s patronage, who are under ”house arrest” in their camp east of Baghdad.
Many of the prisoners being pardoned will be let out of Abu Gharib, the notorious prison under Saddam that was renovated by the Americans after they toppled the old regime.
The thousands of detainees have been a sore point of the US-run occupation, with many Iraqis complaining they did not know where their family members had disappeared.
On the rewards programme, Bremer said ”the names of the wanted individuals and the amount of the reward for each will be released in the next 24 hours”.
The number is expected to be ”two to three dozen”, a coalition spokesperson said later.
Saddam, who was captured by US forces on December 13, had a price of $25-million on his head.
It is not known if this money was paid out, although military officers involved with the former dictator’s capture have said Saddam’s informer, himself captured earlier by the coalition, should not receive any reward.
Bremer said that nine months since a US-led invasion of Iraq ousted Saddam, ”it is time for reconciliation, time for Iraqis to make common cause”. — Sapa-AFP