AP Photographer Marks One Year in U.S. Prison Camp

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For one year, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been "held at a prison camp in Iraq by U.S. military officials who have neither formally charged him with a crime nor made public any evidence of wrongdoing," AP reports. Hussein "was taken prisoner in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006." The director of the Committee to Protect Journalists commented, "It's unfathomable to me why, after an entire year, there has been no progress in terms of the legal process moving ahead." A Pentagon spokesperson pointed to four reviews of Hussein's case, each of which "determined Hussein represented an imperative threat to security and recommended continued detention," he said. AP, "numerous journalism organizations ... and many newspapers," have called for Hussein's release. AP executive editor Kathleen Carroll said, "The absence of evidence leads to the conclusion that Bilal is being held because of the photographs he took for the AP -- which were published around the world -- and which were part of AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning submission in 2005."