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BAGHDAD (AFP) -
An increasing number of Iraqi detainees are refusing to leave detention
centres despite being eligible for release because they want to
complete studies begun behind bars, a US general said on Sunday.
"In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking
to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies," Major General
Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.
The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the
23,000 or so detainees -- adults and juveniles -- being held at its two
detention facilities, Camp Cropper near Baghdad's international airport
and Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.
Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children
remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling, said Stone,
the commanding general for US detainee operations in Iraq.
The US military, he added, was not encouraging the trend.
"We don't want them to remain in detention," he said. "When they are no
longer considered a threat we want them to go home."
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