SAMARRA, Iraq - An Iraqi who confessed on state television to attacking Iraqi soldiers was tortured to death and then returned to his family, the man's father charged Friday.
Khalid Jouli, a resident of Samarra, a restive Sunni Muslim town north of the capital, said his son, Qahtan, was delivered to him by the interior ministry's elite commando units.
"My son was killed after he was tortured by the interior ministry commandos. They killed him to cover up the lies they broadcast on Al-Iraqiya channel that my son killed many people, including Iraqi army officers," Jouli told AFP.
Jouli's son, a former policeman, was arrested for his suspected involvement in attacks against Iraqi security forces.
He appeared earlier this week on Al-Iraqiya satellite television's "Confessions" programme, on which insurgents are forced to confess their crimes.
There was no immediate confirmation from Iraqi police of his death.
Iraq's interim human rights minister Bakhtiar Amin said he had no knowledge of the incident but vowed an investigation.
"If it's true, such practices are unacceptable," Amin told AFP. "I'm going to ask the interior ministry to open an investigation into the case."
Iraq's security apparatus was accused of practicing torture in a January report released by New York-based Human Rights Watch.
And the US State Department raised questions about the Iraqi police's conduct in its annual human rights report released at the beginning of March.
03/11/2005 12:26 GMT