Five Americans held by US military in Iraq

WASHINGTON - The American military is holding five US citizens, apparently including a Los Angeles filmmaker, among more than 10,000 detainees in Iraq on suspicion of possible terrorist or other criminal activity, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

All of the five are being held without charges or access to lawyers. Three have dual Iraqi citizenship, one dual Iranian citizenship and a fifth man, arrested late last year in Iraq, dual Jordanian citizenship.

Of the four arrested this year, one was taken into custody in April, two in May and another in June.

Defence Department spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to identify the five. But the New York Times and Los Angeles Times on Wednesday identified one as Cyrus Kar, 44, an aspiring filmmaker from Los Angeles who was arrested in Iraq in May.

Kar's Los Angeles-based relatives told the two newspapers that Kar travelled to Iraq in mid-May to work on a documentary. He was arrested when he was stopped in a taxi in Baghdad by Iraqi security forces, who found what they suspected might be bomb parts in the car.

Whitman said they included "several dozen" washing machine timers.

Kar's relatives told the two newspapers that on June 14 an FBI agent, John D Wilson, returned items seized on May 23 from Kar's Los Angeles area apartment and assured them the FBI had found no reason to suspect Kar.

"He's cleared," one of Kar's aunts, Parvin Modarress, quoted Wilson as saying, the newspapers reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California said it had filed a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Kar in federal court in Washington DC and asked for an expedited court date early next week.

Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU's southern California chapter, said Kar, an Iranian-American and Navy veteran, had been "virtually incommunicado" from the outside world and his family for 50 days.

Rosenbaum called his detention "illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane."

The Pentagon remained tight-lipped. "I'm not going to get into any detail," Whitman said.

"What I will say is that one of these individuals was believed to have knowledge of planning associated with attacks on coalition forces. Another individual had in his possession possible IED (improvised explosive devices) components. One individual was possibly involved in kidnapping and another was engaged in what was described as 'suspicious activities."'

Whitman said the five American citizens apparently had no connection to each other and all had been registered with the International Committee of the Red Cross since their arrests.

"These are individuals that are receiving the same treatment that anyone else would in Iraq for what we call imperative reasons of security. That does not include the right to counsel," the spokesman told reporters.

"If they were charged with a crime, of course, they would be getting access to appropriate legal counsel."

The Pentagon spokesman said US authorities are in the process of determining whether the five Americans might be subjected to US or Iraqi legal jurisdiction and whether they might be charged with any crimes.

Relatives of Kar and their lawyers told the newspapers that he has been held not only without charges and unable to gain his freedom, but he could not even tell his family where he is being held.

- REUTERS