NEW YORK, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to produce a list of all documents pertaining to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Baghdad.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Federal District Court in Manhattan made the ruling on a July 2 Freedom of Information suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed the federal government failed to provide any relevant documents in response to a request it made on Oct. 7, 2003.
The ACLU request was for 70 documents detailing the treatment and deaths of detainees while in U.S. custody in Iraq, among other subjects.
On Aug. 17 the judge had ordered the government to start producing the documents, but none have yet been released.
"If the documents are more of an embarrassment than a secret, the public should know of our government's treatment of individuals captured and held abroad," Hellerstein wrote in his decision.
Hellerstein gave the administration until Oct. 15 to produce the list, the New York Times said.
