Detained Reuters cameraman 'close to breaking point'

Jassam's brother Walid visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented US prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, it said.

"He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.' 

"I told him we already tried everything."

Jassam, 31, was detained by American and Iraqi troops at his family home in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on 2 September 2008. They confiscated his computer hard drive and cameras and led him away handcuffed and blindfolded.

The US military rejected an Iraqi Central Criminal Court order on  30 November to release him for lack of evidence, saying he is a “high security threat”. No evidence has been presented.

Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has expressed disappointment over Jassam's detention and said there is no evidence against him. 

Jassam is the only Iraqi journalist still in US custody. He is the last to be detained under wartime rules that predated a US-Iraqi security agreement signed in December. Under the new accord, US forces must obtain a warrant before they can arrest an Iraqi citizen.

The decision to release him or transfer him to the Iraqi legal system will be made by the Iraqi government. The only timetable for that is by the end of the year, a US military spokesman said. ■