The Pentagon said on Monday that an Iraqi photographer working for The Associated Press and held by the U.S. military since April was considered a security threat with “strong ties to known insurgents.”
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there was sufficient evidence to justify the continued detention of Bilal Hussein, 35, who AP said was taken into U.S. military custody on April 12 in the Iraqi city of Ramadi and held since without charge.
He declined to elaborate on what that evidence was.
“All indications that I have received are that Hussein’s detainment indicates that he has strong ties to known insurgents, and that he was doing things, involved in activities that were well outside the scope of what you would expect a journalist to be doing in that country,” he said.
In three separate “independent objective reviews,” Whitman told reporters, “it was determined that Hussein was a security threat and recommended his continued detention.”
AP Associate General Counsel David Tomlin said the Pentagon’s comments don’t address the U.S.-based agency’s central concern that Hussein was being denied due process.
“Mr. Whitman says it would be “up to the central criminal court of Iraq” to charge Bilal with any wrongdoing. But the Iraqi court can’t do that until the U.S. military hands over Bilal and whatever evidence they have against him to Iraqi authorities,” Tomlin said in a statement on Monday.
“This is exactly what AP and Bilal are asking for. If the evidence isn’t strong enough to support charges, however, Bilal should be released.”
Hussein has worked as a photographer for AP for two years and has been based at Ramadi, a hot spot of the insurgency against U.S. occupation forces, since early 2005, the U.S.-based AP has said.
Hussein is one of a number of Iraqi journalists detained by U.S. forces without charge since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said it documented seven such cases in 2005.
