Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jaber Solagh slammed Thursday allegations that his officers ill- treated detainees in one of his ministry detentions in central Baghdad.

There has been "exaggeration about this issue", Solagh told a news conference, adding there were "five or seven cases of torture " out of all the number of the detainees in the facility.

"No one was beheaded or killed," he stressed.

According to Solagh, those detainees were "the most criminal terrorists" and he personally ordered them to be taken to the detention facility in Jadiriyah, as he considered them the most dangerous suspects.

"Among those suspects are Arabs and here you see their identity cards and passports," Solagh said.

Solagh confirmed that an investigation was underway into the torture allegations, after he met with the top US commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey.

"I will punish those who perform torture," he said.

For its part, the most influential Sunni Arab religious body accused the interior ministry of torturing and killing detainees.

Spokesman of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Sheikh Abdul Salam al-Kubaisy said his Sunni organization has evidences about the ministry's abuses against the detainees, whom were captured by the security forces.

On Wednesday, the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party called for international investigation into the allegations, in which more than 170 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, were abused in an interior ministry detention in Baghdad, the party's spokesman Ziyad al-Aani told reporters.

"There have been similar abuses in the past, and we have always been calling for investigations, but in vain," Aani added.

The US troops said that some 173 detainees were discovered in a shelter on Sunday night when a US force raided an area in Baghdad's central neighborhood of Jadriyah. The detainees were found in an underground lock-up, many of them were beaten, malnourished and apparently tortured.

Source: Xinhua