London: Amnesty International has called on the United States to give hundreds of Iraqis detained since the beginning of the occupation the right to meet families and lawyers and to have a judicial review of heir detention.

It also called on the US to ensure that detainees are treated humanely and that excessive use of force is investigated.

"The conditions of detention Iraqis are held under at the Camp Cropper Centre at Baghdad International Airport – now a US base – and at Abu Ghraib Prison may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, banned by international law," Amnesty International said in a press release on June 30.

Detainees arrested by US forces after the conflict have included both criminal and political suspects. Detainees held in Baghdad have invariably reported that they suffered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment immediately after arrest, being tightly bound with plastic handcuffs and sometimes denied water and access to a toilet in the first night of arrest.

Delegates saw numerous ex-detainees with wrists still scarred by the cuffs a month later.

"The USA as an occupying power must uphold international humanitarian law and Human Rights standards in dealing with issues of law and order in Iraq, in the arrest, detention and interrogation of detainees and in ensuring that firearms are only used if lives are in imminent danger," Amnesty said.

The organisation raised these concerns in a letter addressed to US Administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer, head of the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority (OCPA) on June 26. It also asked the OCPA to publicly declare the measures it intends to take to investigate allegations of abuses during house searches, to announce preventive measures to avoid the recurrence of such abuses and to ensure compensation of the victims.

ANI