Are Iraqi police engaging in torture tactics?
NBC exclusive interview: Iraqi policeman says it's just how things are done
NBC VIDEO
Richard Engel
Correspondent
NBC News spoke to an Iraqi policeman, Ahmed, a 22-year-old Shiite, who did not want to show his face, but agreed to speak candidly and coldly about how things are done in Baghdad.
Ahmed (translated): As soon as a person is brought in, he is severely beaten until there is a confession. Some confess without even committing a crime.
That can be just the beginning.
Ahmed (translated): The police I consider honorable kill the terrorists they capture. If we brought them back to the station, they might to bribe their way out.
That’s how journalist Kamal Samaraie, a Sunni, says he got out. He had been picked up after criticizing police conduct in a newspaper.
Kamal Samaraie: I was blindfolded and someone kicked me in my face and broke my teeth.
He says police hung him upside down and clubbed him with a metal pipe.
Kamal Samaraie: They whispered to me, there’s no freedom, you can’t write what you want.
The U.S. always wanted an aggressive police force in Iraq, and helped the interior ministry create a paramilitary wing last year to fight insurgents.
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