The cells in West Asia's most notorious prison have been empty for the past six months and the hangman's noose has remained unused for at least as long. 

Abu Ghreib, the vast prison complex 50km outside Baghdad, chills the heart of every Iraqi who knows about it. 

More sinister than Sing Sing, Alcatraz or Devil's Island, this is the place where criminals and political prisoners were routinely sent. 

Its walls are intact and so are the cells, dispensary and dining hall. The dust-covered gates leading to the complex have been flung open to people who want to know the fate of their loved ones; packs of stray dogs and looters hoping to retrieve souvenirs from the place they call the House of the Dead.

The first stop for every visitor is an area close to the entrance where spools of camera film lie. Next come the cells, the dispensary, the dining area and the so-called library. 

But it is the execution block that inevitably attracts the most attention. Tucked away in a corner, it has two sturdy ropes hanging from the ceiling and stopping short of the circular drops through which the dead bodies passed.

The black hoods used to cover the faces of the condemned are in a dusty heap outside the block. 

The warden, Jabburi, has not been seen for a long time and is said to be living anonymously in Baghdad. 

One of Abu Ghreib's most famous inmates was Iraqi nuclear chemist Dr Hussein Shahristani, who spent 10 years in solitary confinement for refusing to participate in Saddam Hussein's project to build the Arab world's first nuclear bomb.

Another was Farzad Bazoft, a journalist working with London Observer newspaper. He was arrested on charges of spying in October 1989 and executed six months later.

Both men were forced to grovel before warders who forced them to intone Abu Ghreib's daily mantra praising Saddam.

It went as follows: Name - Saddam Hussein; mother's name - the Arab nation; nickname - leader of victory and peace; blood group - Arabian milk; place of birth - under the shadow of a palm tree by the Euphrates; birthmark - tattoo of faithfulness; career - knight of the Arabian nation.

The executioner and other prison officials, who have fled, have left behind a mound of documents and photographs that desperate Iraqi families queue up to examine.

Among those peering into every nook and corner of the Abu Ghreib complex is a 33-year-old labourer, Hasan Lift Ataiyeh, who wants information about his older brother, Mohammed, last seen in 1980.

Hasan hero-worshipped his brother and used to carry his sports clothes and shoes for him to the football club in the Baghdad suburb of Thawra.

He was only 10 years old when the secret police smashed open the family's door at 4am and arrested Mohammed for treason. He has not been seen since that day. If he were alive he would be 50.

Hasan's search started on Sunday in the grounds and offices of the mukhabarat [the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Iris].

"Can you help me?" he asked. "I cannot read. Perhaps my brother's details have been stored in English."

The next stop for Hasan will be the offices of the Amn al-Aam, the counter-intelligence service, in another part of the town. Looters have stripped the offices of both agencies.

Records lie scattered both inside and outside the main buildings. In the case of the mukhabarat, two annexes have also been burnt by furious crowds determined to expunge the memory of the police state.

Shopkeeper Mehdi Hussein, 34, has not seen his brother Essam since 1991.

Mehdi is a Shia who makes no bones about his hatred for Saddam. Both he and his father were arrested several times.

The family did not think Essam would be touched because of his youth [he was 18 at the time of his arrest] and clean record.

Now that the regime has been toppled, the Ataiyehs and the Husseins are hoping against hope that good news will be forthcoming about their missing relatives. Neither family wants to make the dreaded journey to Abu Ghreib to see if the records there contain the information they seek.