U.S. must charge or release Reuters Iraq cameraman: CPJ

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. military must charge or immediately release a Reuters cameraman detained in Iraq, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday.

Ali al-Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, was detained in Baghdad on July 26 while he was in the Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a U.S. military press card.

U.S. forces have detained Mashhadani before. No charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province.

"This is the third time U.S. forces have detained Ali al-Mashhadani without charge," said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the New York-based press rights group.

"The military has never substantiated any wrongdoing by him. The authorities must make evidence against him public or release him immediately," said Mahoney.

Reuters and the BBC have urged the U.S. military to immediately release Mashhadani or produce evidence to justify his detention.

A U.S. military spokesman has said Mashhadani was being held at Camp Cropper, an American prison near Baghdad's airport, because he "has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces."

The spokesman said Mashhadani's case will be reviewed this week. The military contends that under the U.N. mandate governing the presence of foreign forces in Iraq it can detain anyone considered a security risk indefinitely.

U.S. forces previously detained Mashhadani in August 2005 after troops became suspicious of film and photographs of the Sunni Arab insurgency then raging in Anbar that they found on his cameras while searching his home in Ramadi.

He was held until January 2006. Mashhadani was also detained for two weeks in mid-2006.

Mahoney is a former Reuters correspondent and editor who joined the CPJ in 2005.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols)