The corpses of at least three of the six Sunni Muslim detainees who died while in Iraqi government custody earlier this month showed signs of torture, their families said Thursday as they vowed revenge at emotionally charged funerals.

Iraqi authorities announced an investigation into the suffocation deaths of six men who were being transported on May 12 in a poorly ventilated truck en route to appear before an investigative committee in Baghdad. The families said they were informed the men died in a "shipping container."

News of the deaths infuriated Sunnis from the prisoners' home province of Anbar at a time sectarian tensions already are high because of a post-election political stalemate.

"I blame the Iraqi government, which bears responsibility for the death of my brother, and the American forces hold even more responsibility for handing him over to the Iraqis," said Talib al-Nimrawi, whose younger brother, Salah, was among the dead. "The Americans should exert pressure on the Iraqi government to hand over the criminals who did this. Otherwise, (our) tribe is not a small tribe."

Trucks from the defense ministry, loaded with about 170 detainees, departed a prison in Taji, just north of Baghdad, to head toward the capital, according to the families, Iraqi officials and news reports.

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