More prisoners freed from Abu Ghraib

A released Iraqi prisoner uses his crutch as he is greeted by tribal leaders after coming off a bus that brought them out of the Abu Ghraib prison, some 30km west of Baghdad yesterday. According to the US army some 360 prisoners were released yesterday from the prison, notorious for torture under the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein and now under the limelight following revelations of prisoner abuse by occupying US troops. PHOTO: AFP

Four buses left at 8 am (0400 GMT), said Qudaiyah Adel Razzaq as he waited outside the prison walls for his father to be freed.

Another three buses left at 9:30 am, two of them headed towards the Sunni Muslim insurgent bastions of Tikrit and Baquba, Razzaq added.

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Two more buses, with 100 prisoners on board, headed toward the rebel strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi just before 11 am, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

A steering committee of local sheikhs in tribal robes shook the hands of some of the tired-looking detainees as they left the prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad.