Obama tries to block release of images including rape and sexual abuse in Iraq jails

Images of alleged Iraqi prisoner abuse, which U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to censor include pictures of apparent rape and sexual abuse, the Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday. At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.

Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube, the newspaper reported. Another pic apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

Details of these horror images emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed.

The nature of some of these images explains the US President’s efforts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published. Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.