The U.S. army said that it would start transferring thousands of prisoners out of the Abu Ghraib prison to a new jail and hand the notorious detention facility over to Iraqi authorities as soon as possible, BBC reported.
The new prison is being built at a site known as Camp Cropper, near Baghdad’s International airport.
Abu Ghraib has become the most infamous prison in the world, where U.S. forces tortured and sexually abused Iraqi detainees.
The notorious prison on the western outskirts of Baghdad will be handed over to Iraqi authorities once the prisoner transfer to Camp Cropper and other U.S. military prisons in Iraq is finished, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad.
He added that the process might take several months.
Another U.S. spokesman said that the army would hand over Abu Ghraib detainees to the Iraqi Ministry of Justice.
The U.S. says it holds more than 4,500 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The Iraqi government also holds detainees at the prison, though it is not known how many.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States wants to turn Abu Ghraib over to the Iraqis as soon as possible.
"There are facilities being built so that the U.S. can pull out of Abu Ghraib. Then it will be up to the Iraqi government to decide what they want to do. I do not know that the Iraqi government had decided. It's an Iraqi decision, I just don't know that they've made that decision."
The U.S. initially wanted to tear down Abu Ghraib after it became a symbol of the abuse scandal. Photographs of prisoner abuse by U.S. military guards and interrogators shocked the world and prompted worldwide criticism of the U.S.-led war in Iraq.