Prisoners have been transferred out of Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad, Wijdan Mikhail, the Iraqi Human Rights Minister, told The Times.

American Forces turned the prison over to the Iraqi authorities some time after removing the last prisoners on August 15, Busho Ibrahim, the country’s Deputy Justice Minister, said.

The US military confirmed that the transfer of nearly 3,000 detainees from Abu Ghraib to other prisons was planned, but refused to comment further. In March US officials had announced their plans to close the prison.

“We are currently in the process of transferring the Abu Ghraib facility back to the Government of Iraq,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Keir-Kevin Curry, the US military spokesman for detainee operations. “For operational security reasons, we would prefer not to discuss the actual timing of the operation until it is complete. This transfer will allow us to consolidate our effort at fewer sites and improve the conditions for both the coalition guards and the detainees.”

Mr Ibrahim said that the prisoners have already been moved to a new $60 million (£32 million) facility at the Camp Cropper detention centre, at Baghdad international airport. Camp Cropper already holds many high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The camp held most of the Iraqi detainees before the Americans reopened Abu Ghraib in summer 2003. What came next at Abu Ghraib proved to be a nightmare for America’s image in Iraq.

In the autumn of that year US prison guards forced Iraqis into humiliating sexual positions at gunpoint, threatened them physically and took pictures. The pictures were handed to investigators by an outraged US soldier, resulting in the convictions and dismissals of a number of soldiers.

At the time the International Committee of the Red Cross said it believed that the majority of the detainees were innocent. Even before the Americans took it over, Abu Ghraib was hated by Iraqis because Saddam Hussein had kept thousands of prisoners there, many of whom were later hanged.

The prison at Abu Ghraib is spread over 113 hectares (280 acres), in a town of the same name that is now a stronghold for insurgents.

Militants have frequently attacked it. In April 2004 a mortar barrage killed 22 prisoners and injured 91. A year later insurgents launched a full-scale ground assault on the centre, but were repelled.

For some former prisoners at Abu Ghraib there was little joy at its closure. Luay al-Obeidi, who was held there for two months in 2004, said: “They are trying to tell the world the suffering of all of these innocent prisoners is over. But I wish they would keep it open so at least the world will know that in this place there are innocent prisoners sitting tortured and oppressed.”

Mr Ibrahim said that no decision had been taken on the future of the site. Some officials have spoken about turning it into a museum.

More than 13,000 detainees are being held at coalition facilities in Iraq.

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