By Tim Cocks

SAMARRA, Iraq, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities are giving former militants, people who committed minor crimes or who are suspected of offences in the once insurgent bastion of Samarra a chance to clear their name if they turn themselves in.

The programme does not offer amnesty to those who committed major crimes such as murder, kidnapping or planting bombs. They would be taken to court and prosecuted, although surrendering could entail leniency, officials said on Monday.

"We are giving everyone in Samarra who is wanted or thinks they might be wanted the chance to start a new page," Samarra Mayor Mahmoud Khalaf told Reuters. "We are building trust."

The U.S. military which is giving its support to the scheme calls it a chance for reconciliation in a city once largely in the grip of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and other insurgents.

The scheme is an example of what the U.S. military calls "bottom-up" reconciliation in Iraq, where efforts are made at a local level to heal the deep divides between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs.

This has been important given the lack of progress at times in reconciliation at the national level.

Similar programmes have worked well in other cities in surrounding Salahuddin province, such as Tikrit and Balad, the U.S. military says, but there is special significance for Samarra, a flashpoint ever since militants destroyed a revered Shi'ite shrine in February 2006.

That attack on the golden-domed al-Askari mosque, one of Iraq's four holiest Shi'ite shrines, triggered a wave of sectarian violence that killed tens of thousands of people and nearly tore the country apart.

Iraqi officials said so far 28 people have signed up at Samarra's city hall under the programme, which opened on Sept. 15 and has no end date.

Many of those coming in were on wanted lists because of their association with insurgents, such as family ties. The scheme allows them to show they have been unfairly pursued.

But three wanted men had turned themselves in, including a man accused of murder, and would be charged, officials said.

Die-hard insurgents are unlikely to show up, but officials hope those that are wavering will see it as a lifeline.

"They have the benefit of not having to live life on the run either from American forces or the Iraqi security forces," said Lieutenant-Colonel J.P. McGee, U.S. battalion commander for greater Samarra.

At the city hall, a number of Iraqi men of all ages queued to register, as U.S. troops scanned their faces and retinas and took their fingerprints.

"Someone informed the police I was an insurgent but it was a lie," said Abd Majeed Mahmoud, after U.S. soldiers photographed his face framed by a white headress.

"God willing, they're not going to come to my home and arrest me."

(Editing by Dean Yates and Mariam Karouny)

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