U.S. forces has handed over control of the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, to the Iraqi authorities, Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman of the Iraqi government, said on Saturday.

The U.S. forces, who had taken control of the prison since the fall of Saddam's regime in 2003, has evacuated all detainees from the prison before handing over the facility to the Iraqi authorities on Friday, the spokesman told reporters in a news conference.

Abu Ghraib prison is infamous for being one of the biggest detention camps in Iraq which witnessed the scandal of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.

The detention camp held hundreds of thousands of prisoners during the toppled Saddam Hussein regime, including hundreds of political prisoners.

Source: Xinhua