IX. Coerced Testimony and Abuse in Detention

The reliance on confessions in the CCCI cases raises serious concerns about the fairness of those proceedings. Torture and other forms of abuse in Iraqi detention facilities, frequently to elicit confessions in early stages of detention, are well-documented.[117] The reliance on confessions in the court's proceedings, coupled with the absence of physical or other corroborating evidence, raises the possibility of serious miscarriages of justice. In at least 10 investigative hearings and two trials that Human Rights Watch observed, defendants renounced confessions submitted as evidence. In most of those cases, the defendants said they had been physically abused or threatened by interrogators. The large majority of those cases involved detainees held by Iraqi authorities. In the cases of MNF detainees disputing confessions while being prosecuted in the CCCI, one claimed to have been punched and kicked at the time of initial detention and subsequently pressured to sign a confession.

Judges at the investigative and trial phase displayed some willingness to countenance allegations of abuse, and dismiss cases apparently tainted with coerced confessions.[118] In the trial of the defendant facing charges relating to an attack on Iraqi security forces in Salahuddin province (mentioned in the preceding chapter in the context of ineffectual defense counsel), the defendant told the court that while in the custody of police in Tikrit he was tortured repeatedly until he put his fingerprint on the text of a confession. The defendant showed the judges scars on his back, abdomen and legs that he said resulted from torture during interrogation sessions over a period of approximately 40 days. The presiding judge noted that the defendant's confession was likely coerced, and the panel of judges acquitted him.[119]

Most of the approximately three dozen detainees Human Rights Watch spoke with recounted that Iraq's military or security forces arrested them in the course of large-scale round-ups. They said abuse occurred in the early stages of pretrial detention. A detainee awaiting his investigative hearing at the court's Rusafa branch told Human Rights Watch he had been detained at an Iraqi army checkpoint in Baghdad's Doura district by soldiers from a predominantly Shia unit who recognized his family name as Sunni. The detainee claimed that prior to his transfer to a Ministry of Justice holding facility, detaining forces had blindfolded and beaten him, subjected him to electric shocks, and forced to him drink large quantities of water while not allowing him to urinate.[120]

Another detainee at the same branch of the court told Human Rights Watch he had been held by an Iraqi national guard unit south of Baghdad in August 2007, accused of bomb attacks on Iraqi security forces, and kept for four months prior to his transfer to Baghdad's transfer prison (Tasfirat). During that period, he said, his jailers beat him with sticks and their fists, and suspended him from a rod by his hands and feet before beating him on the torso and limbs.[121]

A third detainee awaiting an investigative hearing told Human Rights Watch he had been detained by an Iraqi army unit in July 2006 and taken to an army base in southern Baghdad where he was held for six months. He displayed scars consistent with accounts of beatings he claimed to have suffered during that period. He said his jailers had suspended him by his bound hands and administered electric shocks to his ears, hands, and genitals. He claimed they coerced him into signing a confession during that period.[122]

A fourth detainee told Human Rights Watch he had been detained during an Iraqi army sweep in Yousufiyya south of Baghdad in January 2007 and held at an army base for three months before being brought to Baghdad's transfer prison. During that time his jailers applied electric shocks to his ears and genitals; he displayed scars consistent with the type of abuse he described.[123]