Iraqi prisoners freed from jail

As the army trucks left the prison, scores of Iraqis jumped into waiting vehicles to follow the convoy. It was not clear where the prisoners were to be dropped off. At Abu Ghraib, prisoners’ relatives gathered in the dusty car park outside the prison’s main gates for several hours, watched over by US soldiers and Iraqi police. Translators using loudspeakers had told the crowd to go to a nearby town where the prisoners were to be taken by bus upon release.
The coalition is holding at least 10,000 prisoners in Iraq. International human rights groups have alleged that thousands of detainees are still being held without charge in often overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.
"Five hundred people is very little when you go downtown and see all the families and when you ask them [the authorities] if they have a son or a husband they say, ‘We don’t know’," Iraqi rights lawyer Omar Tawfik said.
After announcing the prisoner releases, Mr Bremer also unveiled a $200,000 reward programme for information leading to the capture of 30 Iraqis suspected of taking part in the anti-US insurgency.