Nineveh Governorate asks for transfer of 1,000 prisoners

The Nineveh governorate administration is preparing to move one thousand convicted prisoners to other provinces in Iraq, including Baghdad, according to an official.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Nineveh governorate administration is preparing to move one thousand convicted prisoners to other provinces in Iraq, including Baghdad, according to an official.

There are 6,000 convicted prisoners and detainees in Nineveh province’s prisons, which is reportedly causing issues.

Asil Agha, a member of the Nineveh council, told local media that “a joint committee had been formed between the Ministries of Interior and Justice to prepare a list of one thousand prisoners to be transferred.”

Nineveh has three detention centers, which are Tal-kayf, Faisalia, and Tafserat, with the capacity to hold 2,500 individuals. Most of the detainees are convicted of terrorism and the province lacks rehabilitation facilities and juvenile detention centers.  

Agha also said they are planning to transfer part of the prisoners to “Abu-Ghreib and Taji in Baghdad.”

Nineveh governorate council members believe the conditions in the province’s prison “do not meet international humanitarian standards and are overcrowded” and surmised this was the reason behind Iraq's expulsion from the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Iraq lost its seat at the United Nations Human Rights Council on Oct. 20, a position which it had held since 2017.   

“There is simply not enough space for the detainees, not even for sitting down and resting. The prisoners cannot meet privately with their lawyers,” added Agha.

Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, was a vital stronghold of the Islamic State in the country following the group's emergence in 2014, after its liberation in 2017 almost four years after its capture, thousands of the terrorist group’s militants and their supporters were imprisoned.

In 2018, Nineveh province council members in a meeting raised the issue of the prisons being overcrowded and the slow trial process for Islamic State members were increasing pressure on the three prisons. The province had then requested the construction of new prisons.   

Editing by Nadia Riva