ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi government has decided to transfer nearly 2,000 convicted Islamic State (ISIS) prisoners from Mosul to Baghdad in a bid to cope with the overloaded internment facilities in Nineveh Province.
The transfer process is set to include the convicted ISIS felons held at the Tel Kaif detention facility including 1624 men, nine women and 118 teenagers under 18, Sherwan Dubardani, a Mosul representative MP in the Iraqi Parliament, told Rudaw English on Wednesday.
Asil al-Agha, a member of the Nineveh Provincial Council told KirkukNow that "the prisoners are due to be transferred to Abu Ghraib and Taji prisons in the capital, Baghdad."
The province of Nineveh is home to three detention facilities – Tel Kaif, Faisaliya and Tasfirat – that have the capacity to accommodate 2,500 inmates, but are currently housing nearly 4,500 detainees, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) published on August 5.
Dubardani said after a field visit to the center-turned-prison in Tel Kaif, he realized "how terrible the place was" and that it was "not suitable at all" for the convicted held there.
"There was also little security measures taken against the convicted," he added. "It was really dangerous."
The damage ISIS inflicted on Mosul is now preventing Iraqi forces from finding suitable facilities in which to house the prisoners.
"Mosul does not have a proper prison now after ISIS blew up Badush jail, which was the biggest and the most important reformatory facility ," Dubardani said, adding that Mosul authorities were "forced to hold them elsewhere.”
He added among others held at the Tel Kaif facility are another 316 men, 142 women and 730 teens who have not yet been tried.
However, he explained that it has not yet been decided as to when the whole transfer process will finish.
"It is not an easy job. It is very complicated," he said. The decision has been made and it will take place," he explained.
Iraq's government has declined to provide figures on detention centers or prisoners, including how many are facing terrorism-related charges, although some sources estimate that 20,000 are being held for purported ISIS links.
In a report published March, HRW urged the Iraqi government to "ensure that detention before trial is the exception, not the rule, and only applied on an individual basis where it is necessary."
"The authorities should ensure that there is a clear legal basis for detentions, that all detainees have access to legal counsel, including during interrogation, and that detainees are moved to facilities accessible to government inspectors, independent monitors, relatives, and lawyers, with regular and unimpeded access”, it added.
Photos of juvenile and women cells published by HRW show severe overcrowding. Conditions in Nineveh were said to be so bad that lawyers cannot meet with their clients inside, “because there is no space for meetings”.
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