BAGHDAD, 8 June 2006 — Some clutching the Holy Qur’an and kissing the ground, the first batch of a planned mass release of 2,500 prisoners walked free in Iraq yesterday as part of efforts to heal sectarian wounds and defuse an insurgency.

Vice President Tareq Al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab leader, said a total of 562 detainees had been let out from “US occupation prisons,” a day after new Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki announced the move to help foster national reconciliation.

The release comes a few days after senior Sunni politician Adnan al-Dulaimi recommended such a step to Maliki to calm the ongoing sectarian violence.

It was one of the biggest such releases of prisoners held in Iraqi or American jails since US-led forces invaded the country three years ago to topple Saddam Hussein.

Many of those in detention — estimated at more than 28,000 — are believed to be held on suspicion of involvement in a rebellion against the US-backed, Shiite-led government. The move by Maliki also appeared to be an attempt to shore up his own authority at a time when rivalries within his ruling Shiite Alliance have cast doubt over his effectiveness.

Looking exhausted, some of about 100 let free in Baghdad told of how they had spent months — sometimes more than a year — in jail without being formally charged.

“I was detained for almost seven months because the US military accused me of launching rockets at their forces,” said Sunni Arab tribal leader Ra’ad Talal Hikmat from the western province of Anbar.

“We suffered from bad food and illness,” he added.

Detainee Raed Jamil, a former martial arts coach to the national team, spent two years in US-run Camp Bucca on trumped up charges, he said, of aiding the insurgency.

“I am optimistic it won’t happen again and I’m going back to my job and my family,” Jamil said. He however scoffed at the number of releases.

“It’s nothing, because on an average they are arresting 1,000 people daily,” he said.

Three buses brought the prisoners to Baghdad’s main bus station under US and Iraqi security. As they stepped out, some wept while others smiled and waved at waiting families.

“I spent 16 months in jail without any specific reason. They only questioned me once, accusing me of funding terrorism,” said Youssef Khidr, 38, adding he had been arrested by Iraqi forces and then handed over to the US-run Abu Ghraib prison.

Maliki, under intense pressure to end violence, said Tuesday that the prisoner release would free those who had no clear evidence against them or had been detained mistakenly.

But “Saddam loyalists” or “terrorists” would stay in jail.

It was not clear how many of those to be released were in Iraqi custody and how many were held by the US military.

Maliki had cited the release of people imprisoned without just cause as one of his priorities when he took office in May.

Such detentions, by Iraqi and US security forces, have been a major source of popular discontent.

Hamid Jassim Mohammad, a 39-year-old accountant in Baghdad, said he had been in prison for nine months without knowing why.

“They only interrogated me for five minutes asking me if I knew terrorists and then I was left in jail until today,” he said after his release.

Maliki’s prisoner release came at a time when his fractious, Shiite political alliance is blocking his efforts to name new interior and defense ministers, who he hoped would lead his charge against insurgents and sectarian violence.

The two key security jobs were left vacant when the self-styled government of national unity took office on May 20 because of a failure to agree on names.

Maliki said this week he would present his candidates to the next session of Parliament. The assembly’s deputy speaker later said it would be held today.

Violence has continued to rage across Iraq since his grand coalition of majority Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds took office less than three weeks ago. Yesterday at least 20 people, including 10 policemen, were killed in a series of rebel attacks, security officials said.

In Baghdad, 13 out of some 50 Iraqi transport workers who were abducted this week were found alive but some showed signs of torture and had been shot in the foot, police said. Police also found bodies of three men and two women across Baghdad yesterday. All of them were shot to death.

In two separate roadside bomb and shooting attacks, six members of the police force — including a Lt. Col. and an aide — were killed in the capital.

In the northern city of Mosul, gunmen shot dead three university students, police said, in what appeared to be the latest in a spate of attacks against Iraqi students.

In the restive town of Hawija, a Sunni imam known for his sermons sympathetic to insurgents was dragged from his house in the early hours of the morning and found dead two hours later.

The United States has said it would not withdraw its 133,000 troops until Iraqi forces can handle security on their own. But Washington’s coalition partner Italy has other plans.

Visiting Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema said he believed his country’s troops would return home by end-2006.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who took office last month, has vowed to live up to promises for a swift pullout of Italy’s 2,600 troops. He has called the Iraq war a “grave error.”

“We think that by the end of this year the Italian military mission will end in Iraq,” D’Alema told a news conference.