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Iraqis demand answers in deaths of 6 detainees who died during transport
Relatives of six detainees from Anbar province were planning a homecoming this week. Instead, they spent Thursday holding funerals and calling on the Iraqi government to account for their deaths.
The men suffocated last week while being transported between detention facilities in sealed vehicles, officials said. They arrived back in Anbar in coffins, their bodies bearing bruises and burn marks from electric shocks, relatives of two of them said.
The case shocked Iraqi and American officials at a time when the United States is releasing or transferring to Iraqi custody the few detainees it still holds and as the country's justice system struggles to overcome a burden of corruption.
The six men were among more than 100 inmates transferred to Baghdad from a Justice Ministry prison just north of the city, and a panel was to review their cases, Justice Minister Dara Noor al-Din said.