The Iraqi cabinet on Wednesday approved a draft law that offers a general pardon to thousands of detainees held in US and Iraqi prisons in a bid to boost national reconciliation, an official told AFP.
"The draft law offering amnesty to detainees who are innocent was approved by the cabinet and forwarded to parliament today," said Sadiq al-Rikabi, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Thousands of detainees, mostly Sunni Arabs, are being held in US and Iraqi prisons without formal charges. Most have been detained for more than a year on suspicion of backing insurgency in Iraq.
Their detention is seen fuelling animosity between the Shiite and Sunni communities in Iraq and the US military in particular has been strongly advocating their release in the wake of a growing alliance of Sunnis with American forces.
"The law will cover as many number of detainees as possible" who are not found to be guilty, Rikabi said, adding that some of the detainees include those held for corruption and other financial crimes.
Around 26,000 detainees are held in two US prisons and thousands more in Iraqi-run detention centres. The US military holds the detainees at Camp Cropper near the Baghdad airport and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.
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