BAGHDAD — The U.S. military on Wednesday released a freelance Iraqi journalist who had been held without charge for 17 months after telling him more than a year ago that his detention had been “a mistake,” the journalist said.
Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for the London-based Reuters news agency, said his U.S. interrogators had initially accused him of disseminating material relating to insurgent attacks. He had been seized in a raid from his home south of Baghdad in September 2008.
Jassam denied the charge and, after several months, the military told him “that I was captured by mistake,” he said. An Iraqi court ordered him released for lack of evidence in November 2008.
The U.S. military rebutted Jassam’s claim. A spokeswoman for the U.S. military’s detainee operations said there was intelligence evidence against Jassam but that it remains classified.
Los Angeles Times
