- A prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric, saying he was detained
and beaten by US forces, charged that American methods were "worse"
than those employed by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.
-
- "Our arrest by the Americans was worse than the
arrests that Saddam ordered against our students," Sheikh Mohammed
al-Fartusi told Abu Dhabi television.
-
- The cleric, whose followers said he was detained Sunday
by US troops along with five other Shiites, reappeared in Baghdad on Tuesday
to cheers from hundreds of supporters who had held protests for two days.
-
- Fartusi's comments came as another cleric reported kidnapped
was said to have been released along with two busloads of Shiite Muslim
pilgrims heading for the holy city of Karbala.
-
- Fartusi claimed that "we were beaten ... spent a
night with our hands tied behind our backs," adding however than an
American officer did turn up and offer an apology.
-
- "It was disgusting. Despite the fact that none of
our young men has pointed a weapon against America ... but next time, God
alone knows what popular anger could lead to?"
-
- US officials have said they could not confirm Fartusi's
arrest, but reports that the prominent mullah had been detained infuriated
members of Iraq's Shiite majority.
-
- Protest organizers said Fartusi, Abdelrahman al-Shuani
and Halim al-Fatlawi were arrested along with three bodyguards by US forces
Sunday at a checkpoint 25 kilometres (10 miles) south of Baghdad.
-
- They were returning from Karbala, where hundreds of thousands
of Shiites have gathered for a massive pilgrimage that was due to climax
later Wednesday.
-
- The reported arrest threatened to become a major source
of friction between the Americans, who toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein
on April 9, and the Shiites, who account for 60 per cent of Iraq's 25 million
people.
-
- On Wednesday an Iraqi religious leader said that cleric
Skeikh Mohammed Taqi al-Madrassi had been released along with the two busloads
of pilgrims heading for Karbala.
-
- "He was found by coalition forces" late Tuesday,
Sheikh Abd Al-Basri told Qatar's Al-Jazeera television.
-
- Madrassi had on Monday been "kidnapped by certain
parties who remain unknown," he said, but provided no further details.
-
- The alleged kidnap was reported Tuesday by Azhar al-Khafaji,
secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic National Front.
-
- The cleric was "returning to Iraq after 32 years
of exile spent fighting Saddam Hussein's regime," he told Al-Jazeera.
-
- "The convoy was stopped at a roadblock in a zone
controlled notably by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) but we do not know the identity of the forces
that hold him," Khafaji had said.
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