More than 590 prisoners freed in Iraq

updated 1:42 p.m. ET June 7, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki released nearly 600 detainees Wednesday, making good on a pledge intended to ease feuding between Sunni Arabs and Shiites.

The detainees were the first of 2,000 prisoners whom al-Maliki promised would be freed from Iraq’s most notorious prisons in an apparent effort to ease anger among minority Sunnis over allegations of arbitrary detentions and mistreatment of prisoners.

Sectarian tensions surged with Monday’s abductions of 50 people in downtown Baghdad by gunmen wearing police uniforms and the shooting deaths of 21 Shiites north of the capital, including students pulled from their minivans.

Police said Wednesday that 15 of the kidnapped people had been released, some with signs of torture, but provided no details on their identities.

Violence was unabated Wednesday, with at least 14 deaths reported.

Among those were a man and his son, who died in a gunbattle that also wounded eight people, including five women and a baby, just north of Baqouba, according to the Joint Coordination Bureau in Diyala. It was unclear how the fighting began.

Kissing the ground
Al-Maliki, a Shiite who took office two weeks ago, has made security and reconciliation among Sunnis and Shiites a priority of his government. He has stressed, however that the detainee release plan excludes loyalists of ousted leader Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated Baath Party, as well as “terrorists whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people.”

Italy’s foreign minister, meanwhile, said Italy will not withdraw all its troops from Iraq until the end of the year, sticking to a timeline set by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi even after the election of a new center-left government.

But Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema, who was in Baghdad to discuss the plans with Iraqi leaders, said Italy would begin reducing the number of Italian troops in Iraq this month.

The Iraqi government said 2,000 detainees whose cases have been reviewed will be released in the coming days in batches of about 500. The first 594 were released Wednesday from U.S.- and Iraqi-run prisons around Iraq, including Abu Ghraib.

Released inmates dropped off at a bus station in Baghdad kissed the ground and sat down and cheered. One man used crutches for support.

“I was arrested from my home on Dec. 19, 2004, so I was accused of kidnapping people working for Iraqna mobile company,” said one released prisoner, Mohammed Jassim.

Al-Maliki said Tuesday 2,500 would be released, but changed that number to 2,000 Wednesday.

'Happiness and hope'
Iraqi officials have said there is an agreement to release up to 14,000 detainees once their cases have been reviewed. A U.N. report last month said there were 28,700 detainees in Iraq.

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