Inside Baghdad's hellhole

Inside Baghdad's hellhole

By Richard Galpin and Fergal Keane
BBC correspondents in Baghdad

An eerie reminder: The silent gallows remain

A week after American forces took control of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, more evidence is emerging of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime.

BBC correspondents in Baghdad visited one of the most notorious jails where tens of thousands of political prisoners were held - and many were tortured and executed.

Abu Ghraib prison, a huge complex on the outskirts of the capital, is believed to be the largest jail in the Middle East.

The jail was cleared before the war - some prisoners sent to other jails, others simply murdered. The jailers tried to cover their tracks by burning their files.

It has since been stripped by looters, but not everything has gone.

'Sound of bullets'

Inside the execution chamber, two hangman's ropes are still suspended from the ceiling.

The lives of thousands of Saddam Hussein's opponents - men and women - were brought to an end here. Executions took place every Sunday and Wednesday.

Sobhi Haddad, a writer, was tortured

Sobhi Haddad was a writer who was jailed for offending Saddam Hussein.

"They whipped my legs with a piece of wood and they beat my feet 40 times, until I fainted," he said.

"The sound of bullets now reminds me of my companions who were taken from this place for execution. We were always listening to the sound of bullets.

"Where did they go? Why? Simply because they had a different viewpoint from the ruler. Is this a reason to lose one's life? God... It's terrible."

His lips tremble; he is on the verge of tears.

Flimsy crimes

Another man, Radi Oshoki, spent 10 years inside for refusing to fight against Iran in the long war of the 1980s.

He was branded a traitor and is lucky to be alive, but he was brutally tortured.

Prisoners were moved to other jails - or killed - before war began

Inside the cell where he had spent a decade of his life, he described how he had been hung from the ceiling fan and beaten with plastic pipes filled with lead.

His torturers also used electric shocks. Women were sometimes raped.

Many intellectuals were also held in this prison, often for the most trivial of reasons.

One senior journalist we met was sentenced to seven years simply for writing that security had been relaxed in Baghdad after the end of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s.