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More Iraqi Prisoners Freed Under Prime Minister's Reconciliation Plan
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=12CAF74:3919ACA About 450 detainees
released Tuesday, from US-run Abu Ghraib prison, other detention
centers across country





National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie, left, greets recently
released prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq Tuesday,
June 27, 2006Several hundred more Iraqi prisoners have been freed
under a national reconciliation plan that Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki announced on Sunday.

About 450 detainees walked free Tuesday from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib
prison west of Baghdad and other detention centers across the country.

Mr. Maliki has promised to release 2500 prisoners by the end of the
month.  Officials say those being freed were not involved in violent
crimes, or they had been detained by mistake.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military says separate insurgent attacks killed an
American Marine and a soldier outside Baghdad, Tuesday.  And a car
bomb in Kirkuk killed three Iraqis.

In another development, Iraq's High Tribunal says the second trial of
Saddam Hussein and several of his former top officials will start on
August 21.  They are charged with genocide and accused of killing tens
of thousands of Kurds in the 1980's Anfal campaign.

The campaign to crush a Kurdish uprising also included the gassing in
Halabja in 1988 that killed 5,000 people.  Saddam and seven
co-defendants are currently on trial on charges they murdered 148
Shi'ites from the village of Dujail. The deaths followed an
assassination attempt against the former Iraqi dictator in 1982. Some
information for this report was provided by  AP and Reuters.


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