But first, Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a "critical list", according to Bradley.
Mohamed, who is suffering dramatic weight loss after a month-long hunger strike, has told Bradley, 45, that he is "very scared" of being attacked by guards, after witnessing a savage beating for a detainee who refused to be strapped down and have a feeding tube forced into his mouth. It is the first account Bradley has personally received of a detainee being physically assaulted in Guantánamo.
Bradley recently met Mohamed in Camp Delta's sparse visiting room and was shaken by his account of the state of affairs inside the notorious prison.
She said: "At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF [the Joint Task Force running Guantánamo] are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.
"Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.
"It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, 'I don't want to be beat, injured or killed.' Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal," said Bradley.
"Binyam is continuing to lose weight and he is going to get worse. He has been told he is about to be released, but psychologically and physically he is declining."
It is conceivable that Mohamed himself may shortly return to London, heralding yet another political embarrassment for Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who already faces a tumultuous week over claims that he was keen to suppress evidence of torture.
On Tuesday, the unprecedented dispute between Miliband and the judiciary is set to reignite when High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones decide whether to reopen the case which Mohamed believes substantiates his torture claims.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, a little-publicised court case into the treatment of Mohamed will open. American civil liberties lawyers are hoping to shine a light on the defence firm that allegedly carried out the practice of "rendition" on behalf of the CIA. Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing subsidiary, helped to arrange rendition flights for several terror suspects, including Mohamed, to nations where they claim they were tortured.
The case was originally dismissed after the Bush administration asserted "state secrets privilege", indicating that it would endanger national security - the same argument used by Miliband. However, Obama has repeatedly stressed his willingness to be less secretive than his predecessor and a similar decision would lead to claims that the current administration is bent on suppressing evidence of torture.
Closer to home, the Observer has found evidence suggesting a broader unwillingness by Britain to confront the US over its war on terror programme. The Attorney General says it is "actively considering" possible criminal wrongdoings against MI5 and the CIA, but sources claim the government's senior lawyer has failed, after almost four months of looking into the issue, to request material from the US that may substantiate allegations of MI5 complicity in Mohamed's torture.
Suspicion is also growing that some sections of the US intelligence community would prefer Binyam did die inside Guantánamo. Silenced forever, only the sparse language of his diary would be left to recount his torture claims and interviewees with an MI5 officer, known only as Witness B. Such a scenario would also deny Mohamed the chance to personally sue the US, and possibly British authorities, over his treatment.
But if Mohamed survives to come back to London, his experiences of the past six years promise a harrowing journey through the dark underbelly of the war on terror. For Miliband, the questions concerning Britain's role may have only just begun.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/binyam-mohamed-torture-guantanamo-bay
==========
I expect this year to start getting serious whether Obama wants it to or not, and a lot of the effort will have to come from citizens putting pressure on their representatives and the media. Dogging this administration maybe necessary to see justice done.
The destruction of CIA tapes of interrogation sessions could be obstruction of justice, for instance. In two other areas, in particular, the administration appeared to flagrantly violate the law.
First, the administration violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which set legal standards for wiretapping American citizens in national security cases.
Second, the administration violated legal prohibitions on the use of torture (and cruel and inhuman treatment). Violations of both laws are felonies.
Presumably the Bush administration believed that it was acting legally. Genuine belief by officials that their conduct was legal might militate against prosecution, but alone should not be enough to insulate illegal and unconstitutional behavior. High government officials must be held accountable for their actions. Otherwise future officials will realize that they can violate the law with impunity by simply claiming that they believed the law to on their side.
Having chosen to violate the law, administration officials should be held accountable. At the very least that requires investigating and reporting on their actions. More likely that includes legal action against at least some of the actors.
The other obvious violation of the law is the use of torture. The argument against torture is powerful: claims that "enhanced interrogation" methods, as the administration preferred to call its practices, remain unproven assertions. In fact, counter-terrorism officials familiar with the most noted cases discount the information acquired as a result of torture. In general, they dismiss the value of intelligence procured under duress and emphasize alternative strategies for getting information. Even FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted that he didn't "believe it to be the case" that the Bush administration's tough interrogation practices prevented any terrorist attacks in the U.S.
Moreover, torture tarnishes America's global reputation, threatening Washington's ability to win the cooperation of friendly states in fighting terrorism. The practice also puts American forces at risk. A former special intelligence operations officer writing in the Washington Post under the pseudonym Matthew Alexander argued after his experience in Iraq: "It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse."
Finally, torture erodes America's moral core, so critical to what makes America worth defending. Notes Charles Fried of Harvard Law School, who also served as Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan: "we cannot authorize indecency without jeopardizing our survival as a decent society."
Here, too, if President Bush believed that he lacked sufficient authority under the law to protect America, he should have proposed that Congress amend or repeal the law. He did not have the option to ignore it.
Did the administration utilize torture?
"There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." Ask Robert Turner, a Reagan White House attorney who said that war crimes "may well have been committed." Ask Susan Crawford, a retired judge (and Republican) appointed by the Defense Department to decide whether to charge Guantanamo Bay inmates. She called the treatment of one Saudi inmate torture, contending: "The buck stops in the Oval Office."
In short, detainees were tortured. The only questions are how many people were tortured and who were responsible for the decision to use torture. To prosecute would not be to criminalize policy differences, but to punish a criminal policy.
The issue appears to have been debated at high highest levels of the White House if not in the Oval Office itself, and that's where responsibility should be lodged. A bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees."
http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=14119
On the torture issue, at least, the administration may find it difficult not to prosecute. When Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that waterboarding was torture, he was telling the nation that the Bush administration had violated the law. Noted Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch: "It would be contrary to the principles of the criminal justice system for the attorney general to say he believes a very serious crime has been committed and then to do nothing about it."
=================
Waterboarding is a War Crime
The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government -- whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community -- has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.
After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: "I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure." He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. "Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning," he replied, "just gasping between life and death."
Nielsen's experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan's military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.
In this case from the tribunal's records, the victim was a prisoner in the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies:
A towel was fixed under the chin and down over the face. Then many buckets of water were poured into the towel so that the water gradually reached the mouth and rising further eventually also the nostrils, which resulted in his becoming unconscious and collapsing like a person drowned. This procedure was sometimes repeated 5-6 times in succession.
The United States (like Britain, Australia and other Allies) pursued lower-ranking Japanese war criminals in trials before their own tribunals. As a general rule, the testimony was similar to Nielsen's. Consider this account from a Filipino waterboarding victim:
Q: Was it painful?
A: Not so painful, but one becomes unconscious. Like drowning in the water.
Q: Like you were drowning?
A: Drowning -- you could hardly breathe.
Here's the testimony of two Americans imprisoned by the Japanese:
They would lash me to a stretcher then prop me up against a table with my head down. They would then pour about two gallons of water from a pitcher into my nose and mouth until I lost consciousness.
And from the second prisoner: They laid me out on a stretcher and strapped me on. The stretcher was then stood on end with my head almost touching the floor and my feet in the air. . . . They then began pouring water over my face and at times it was almost impossible for me to breathe without sucking in water.
As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the "water cure" to question Filipino guerrillas.
More recently, waterboarding cases have appeared in U.S. district courts. One was a civil action brought by several Filipinos seeking damages against the estate of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. The plaintiffs claimed they had been subjected to torture, including water torture. The court awarded $766 million in damages, noting in its findings that "the plaintiffs experienced human rights violations including, but not limited to . . . the water cure, where a cloth was placed over the detainee's mouth and nose, and water producing a drowning sensation."
In 1983, federal prosecutors charged a Texas sheriff and three of his deputies with violating prisoners' civil rights by forcing confessions. The complaint alleged that the officers conspired to "subject prisoners to a suffocating water torture ordeal in order to coerce confessions. This generally included the placement of a towel over the nose and mouth of the prisoner and the pouring of water in the towel until the prisoner began to move, jerk, or otherwise indicate that he was suffocating and/or drowning."
The four defendants were convicted, and the sheriff was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
We know that U.S. military tribunals and U.S. judges have examined certain types of water-based interrogation and found that they constituted torture. That's a lesson worth learning. The study of law is, after all, largely the study of history. The law of war is no different. This history should be of value to those who seek to understand what the law is -- as well as what it ought to be.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201170_pf.html
===============
Murder of POWs in Afghanistan
The publication of the photographs of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib has resulted in a widening circle of disclosures and official investigations of similar abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay. There are reports that some medical personnel neglected detainees' medical needs and collaborated with coercive interrogations.[1,2] Some physicians, medics, nurses, and physician assistants failed to report abuses or injuries caused by the abuses that they witnessed. This article reviews another human rights issue – the medical evaluation of cases of which prisoners potentially died of because of mistreatment or under suspicious circumstances.
In March 2005, the US Armed Forces said that it suspected that 26 deaths were due to criminal homicides.
There are cases in which a homicidal cause of death was not medically recognized and other cases in which the investigation of the death was insufficient to establish whether trauma was inflicted or accidental. Prisoners died of torture at Asadadad, Bagram, and Gardez in Afghanistan and at Abu Ghraib, Camp Whitehorse, Basra, Mosul, Tikrit, Bucca, and an unidentified facility in Iraq (see Table). These cases do not include deaths due to medical neglect, mortar attacks on prisons, or the shootings of rioting prisoners. Such cases will be considered after reviewing US Department of Defense forensic medical procedures.
On May 21, 2004, a US Department of Defense press conference addressed concerns about the deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.[6] The Department released 23 death certificates that were incomplete and fell far short of standard medical practice or the requirements of the Geneva Convention (Figure 1). Thirteen of the death certificates do not note a date of birth, a vital statistic that would be helpful in evaluating the claim that many prisoners died of heart attacks. None record the next of kin or disposition of the remains. Many do not specify the location of death: Four simply record “Iraq.” The incompleteness of the death certificates and autopsy reports suggests that Armed Forces pathologists supervising prisoners' autopsies did not have access to medical records, information about events preceding the deaths, or the circumstances under which the bodies were found to correlate with autopsy findings. Medical records were rarely created for Iraqi prisoners.[7,8] If available, field investigators inconsistently noted their contents. Field investigators rarely documented any inquiry into confinement or interrogation events preceding the death.
=========Autopsys
Afghanistan
Name unknown[17] Prior to September 2002 Murder conspiracy and obstruction of justice; case closed
1 Mullah Habibullah (also known as Habib Ullah), ~30[33,41] Bagram, December 4, 2002; US Army Dr. Ingwerson did the autopsy on December 6–8, 2002 and promptly signed a death certificate finding homicide by “Pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injury to the legs.” Defense Department issued false report of natural death and when pressed by media, issued the death certificate in May 2004. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse. Prosecution under way.
2 Dilawar, 22[33,42] Bagram, December 10, 2002 Dr. Rouse did the autopsy on December 13, 2002; signed the preliminary copy on December 13, 2003; and did not finalize the death certificate on May 20, 2004 just before the Pentagon press conference. The autopsy attributed the death to a homicide by “Blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease.” Defense Department issued false report of natural death, and when pressed by media, issued the death certificate in May 2004. The Defense Department has issued 2 different death certificates on this person. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse.
3 Jamal Naser[28,43] Gardez, Special Forces, March 2003 Severely beaten unregistered detainee. On September 20, 2004, the US Army confirmed that it was opening an inquiry into the death.
4 Abdul Wali[28,44] Asadadad Base, Kunar, June 21, 2003 No autopsy performed. Cursory exam in the dark by Afghan officials. Former CIA contractor and special operations soldier charged with assault by beating Mr. Wali with a flashlight.
5 Abdul Wahid[45] Bagram, November 6, 2003 Dr. Kathleen Ingwersen did the autopsy, signed, and finalized the death certificate on November 13, 2003. She concluded that he had died of a homicide from “Multiple blunt force injuries complicated by probable rhabdomyolysis [extensive crush injuries of the muscles].” The Pentagon released the death certificate in May 2004.
6 Sher Mohammad Khan[17] September 24, 2004 Military officials told journalist that he had died of a heart attack within hours of being taken into custody. Autopsy not released. Family retrieved the bruised body.
===========
Iraq
1 Radi Nu'ma[27,46] British forces, Basra, May 8, 2003 UK soldiers delivered a note to house, “Radi Nu'ma suffered a heart attack while we were asking him questions about his son. We took him to the hospital.” Family were told at the hospital that no person of that name existed.
Body found in morgue. RMP had delivered unidentified corpse on May 8 and told staff that cause of death was a heart attack, but did not give any other historical or identifying information.
2 Nagen Sadoon Hatab[47–50] US Marines Camp Whitehorse, June 6, 2003 The base commander testified that a medic said that Hatab was “faking” or had a “mild heart attack” when seen 6 hours before death. Autopsy showed that he had been strangled, and the hyoid bone (wishbone) in his neck had been crushed when a soldier dragged him by the throat. However, the case fell apart when the Armed Forces lost the pathology specimens (see text). The Defense Department says that the broken bones came from bouncing the body in a Humvee after death. Dr. Kathleen Ingwersen did the autopsy, signed, and finalized the death certificate on June 10, 2003.
3 Dilar Dababa[25] Secret center, Baghdad, June 13, 2003 There are several accounts of his traumatic death. Dr. Elizabeth Rouse did an autopsy on June 17, 2003, and signed the death certificate as a homicide by “Closed head injury with a cortical brain contusion and subdural hematoma.” However, she did not finalize the death certificate until May 14, 2004.
4 Baha Mousa[10,50] Al Hakima, Basra, September 13, 2003 A 28-year-old prisoner was heard screaming and calling for assistance. Death certificate said that cause of death was “cardio-respiratory arrest-asphyxia”; cause unknown. Lacerations, broken ribs, and a broken nose were not noted on the death certificate (seen by ICRC, which remains classified), although such were noted by witnesses who saw the body.
5 Mohamed Taiq Zaid[51] United States, Iraq, August 22, 2003 The sparsely documented investigation simply says that he was found lying on the ground at a detention center with heat stroke. Autopsy and death certificate: “Heat related. Accidental death.” Dr. Michael Smith performed the autopsy and signed the death certificate on October 23, 2003 but did not finalize the death certificate until May 12, 2004. This case is now being challenged as a possible abuse by heat exposure without providing water and shelter.
6 Obeed Hethere Radad[52] US Army, Tikrit, September 11, 2003 Shot to death by a guard. The Army commander waited 4 days before notifying Army criminal investigators of the homicide. During this time, the base conducted a local hearing that charged a soldier with voluntary manslaughter and demoted and discharged him, thereby preempting the risk that he would face a more serious court martial.
7 Baha Dawud Al-Maliki[52–55] British forces, Basra, September 14, 2003 Press reports and Amnesty International report signs of severe beating, and death certificate says asphyxia.
Body given to family. Investigation by the British is pending.
8 Kefah [Kifah] Taha[54] British forces, Basra, September 17, 2003 Died after 3 days in British custody in Basra in September. Major James Ralph, ICU consultant at the British Military Field Hospital at Shaibah, wrote, “admitted to our facility at 22:40 hours on 16 September. It appears he was assaulted approximately 72 hours ago and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh…. acute renal failure.” Died. Investigation pending.
9 Mon Adel Al-Jamadi[33,56,57] CIA/SEALS, Abu Ghraib, November 4, 2003 Ghost prisoner beaten to death. An Iraqi medical doctor working with the United States in Abu Ghraib confirmed Mr. Al-Jamadi's death. The corpse was packed in ice overnight to try to alter the perceived time of death. The next day, a medic inserted an IV in the corpse's arm and took it out of prison on a gurney as if he was ill. Other interrogators were told that he had died of a heart attack. Death certificate, based on autopsy: “blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration.” Dr. Jerry Hodges did the autopsy November 9, 2003 and signed the death certificate the same day. However, he did not finalize the death certificate until May 13, 2004. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse.
10 Abed Hamed Mowhoush[58–61] CIA/US Army, Qaim, November 26, 2003 Iraqi General Mowhoush was put headfirst into a sleeping bag while being rolled back to stomach; then an interrogator sat on him. On November 27, 2003, the military surgeon and the Pentagon claimed that he had died of natural causes. Dr. Michael Smith did an autopsy on December 2 and signed the death certificate as a homicidal death by asphyxia on December 2, 2003. However, he did not finalize the death certificate until May 12, 2004, as press inquiries were demanding a clearer account of what the Defense Department had been claiming was a natural death. Charges will be filed against the military intelligence officers.
11 Fashad Mohamed[62] US SEALS, Mosul, April 5, 2004 Beaten by SEAL TEAM 7, interrogated, and allowed to sleep and did not wake up. Autopsy and death certificate by Dr. Elizabeth Rouse. She signed it as results “Pending” on April 26." On May 14, she signed a final copy with no further revisions.
====================
CONTAINER DEATHS
More evidence of US war crimes in Afghanistan: Taliban POWs suffocated inside cargo containers
By Jerry White
13 December 2001
Scores, if not hundreds, of Taliban prisoners of war suffocated to death inside metal cargo containers where they were imprisoned after surrendering to Northern Alliance and US forces in the Afghan city of Kunduz in late November. The Taliban prisoners, mostly foreign volunteers from Pakistan, died of asphyxiation and injuries inside the airtight shipping containers during a two or three day journey to a prison in the town of Sheberghan, according to a report in Tuesday’ s New York Times.
These horrific deaths occurred around the same time as hundreds of other Taliban POWs from Kunduz were being massacred by US and Northern Alliance forces at the prison fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, and have been followed by reports of widespread killings of surrendering soldiers in the Kandahar area and elsewhere. Nothing more clearly exposes the barbaric and colonial character of the war in Afghanistan than the fact that the US and its proxy forces are openly and knowingly violating the Geneva Convention by carrying out the deliberate torture and extermination of non-Afghan Taliban prisoners.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), mandated by the Geneva Convention to ensure the humane treatment of war prisoners, announced it would conduct an investigation into the deaths in the shipping containers. Macarena Aguilar, an ICRC spokeswoman said, “Our staff first visited the prison at Sheberghan on Monday, after pushing for 10 days to be allowed to do so.” Aguilar said many of the 3,000 prisoners there were in need of medical treatment and that ICRC workers had arranged for those needing surgery to be moved to a local hospital.
Journalists who had also been barred from the prison entered last Saturday and began interviewing prisoners, as well as the Northern Alliance commander in charge. Colonel General Jurabek said 43 prisoners had died inside the containers, while another 3 died from their wounds upon arrival. Several prisoners interviewed by the Times, however, said the number was much higher.
Omar, described by the newspaper as a “pale and slight youth,” said through the bars of his prison wing that all but seven people in his container died from lack of air. He estimated that more than 100 had died. Another Pakistani said 13 had died in his container and that survivors had taken turns to breathe through a hole in the metal wall.
Such appeals, however, are too little, too late. Top Bush administration and Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have gone on public record stating that the US prefers the killing of non-Afghan soldiers rather than a surrender deal that allowed them to return to their homes as afforded to Afghan-born Taliban prisoners. This itself is a violation of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits in Article 3 “any adverse distinction” between prisoners of war “founded on race, color, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.” Rumsfeld said explicitly that “America is not inclined to negotiate surrenders” and that he hoped al-Qaida forces would “either be killed or taken prisoner.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/dec2001/pows-d13.shtml
=========================AFGHANISTAN 2 POWS
28/03/2004
The recent deaths of two individuals while being interrogated in American custody in Afghanistan must be independently investigated, says the Medical Foundation.
United States Officials have recently confirmed that the deaths of 22-year-old Dilawar and 30-year-old Mullah Habibullah at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan are being treated as "homicides". A "global response team" from their Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington has already conducted autopsies, and the US insists a full investigation is underway.
While welcoming this response, the Medical Foundation is not satisfied that the US authorities are doing enough to dispel deep disquiet about the interrogation methods allegedly being used by security forces at Bagram and other interrogation centres worldwide, some of them secret.
“The Medical Foundation along with other UK-based human rights organisations, has been pressing the US Government for many months to make a high level statement renouncing torture," says Director of Public Affairs at the Medical Foundation, Sherman Carroll (MBE). “There must be a lead from the top.”
This issue has a short and ignoble history, he says. In October 2001 the Washington post reported that FBI agents, off the record, were prepared to justify the use of torture against terrorist suspects. There was a ripple of justifications for torture from US commentators and academics, most notably a call for “judicial warrants to torture” by Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz.
“The exercise appeared to be intended to prepare the public for a dirty war,” says Mr Carroll. In December 2002 five Washington Post reporters, including Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, compiled a report citing CIA agents who, again off the record, said that actual ill-treatment ("torture-lite") was being used at Bagram.
“We now have the deaths of two young men in detention, both of whom died in December. Mr Dilawar died on December 10, the day commemorating the signing of the universal Declaration of Human Rights, championed by the US since 1948.”
Mr Carroll says the specific allegations about deaths at Bagram should be investigated by independent forensic pathologists.
“All detainees there should have access to delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who are currently denied access to the upper floor of the interrogation centre,” he says.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=1074
NYTIMES ARTICLE ON 2 POW DEATHS: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/20/international/asia/20abuse.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=4579c146cb14cfd6&ex=1274241600
=====================DEATH DISCRIBED
Mullah Habibullah, a 30-year-old Afghan from the southern province of Oruzgan, dies of complications related to “blunt force trauma” while in detention at the US base at Bagram.
[Washington Post, 3/5/2003; BBC, 3/6/2003; Guardian, 3/7/2003; New York Times, 9/17/2004]
When Habibullah, reportedly the brother of a former Taliban commander, arrived at the US air base, he was reportedly already severely hurt. Despite his condition, according to one account, he was isolated “in a ‘safety’ position [stress position], with his arms shackled and tied to a beam in the ceiling.” He was left in that position for days, but regularly checked on.
[Knight Ridder, 8/21/2004] At some point, Sgt. James P. Boland, a guard from the Army Reserve’s 377th MP Company from Cincinnati, allegedly watched as a subordinate beat Habibullah.
[New York Times, 9/17/2004] His legs were struck so forcefully, according to one death certificate, it complicated his coronary artery disease. Another certificate will say the beating led to a pulmonary embolism, which is a blockage of an artery in the lungs, often caused by a blood clot.
[USA Today, 5/31/2004] The beating of Habibullah was likely witnessed by British detainee Moazzam Begg, who will later say he witnessed the death of “two fellow detainees at the hands of US military personnel” while at Bagram (see July 12, 2004).
[Guardian, 10/1/2004; New York Times, 10/15/2004] On December 3, Habibullah is found dead, still hanging in his shackles.
[Washington Post, 3/5/2003; BBC, 3/6/2003; Guardian, 3/7/2003; New York Times, 9/17/2004] In charge of the military intelligence interrogators at Bagram at this time is Capt. Carolyn A. Wood. According to an anonymous intelligence officer, Wood should be aware of what is happening to prisoners at Bagram since interrogations take place close to her office. The intelligence officer will recall hearing screams and moans coming out from the interrogation and isolation rooms. [Knight Ridder, 8/21/2004]
More than one-and-a-half years after the deaths of the Afghan detainees Mullah Habibullah (see December 3, 2002) and Dilawar (see December 10, 2002), the US Army Criminal Investigation Command completes its investigation of the two cases. It finds that 28 military personnel, including two captains, were involved in the incident. The perpetrators could be charged with involuntary manslaughter, assault, and conspiracy. A Pentagon official says five or six of the soldiers will likely be charged with the most serious offenses. The investigation concludes that “multiple soldiers” beat Dilawar and Habibullah, using mostly their knees. It is likely, according to Pentagon officials, that the beatings were concentrated on the legs of the detainees, so that wounds would be less visible. Amnesty International severely criticizes the long duration of the investigation. “The failure to promptly account for the prisoners’ deaths indicates a chilling disregard for the value of human life and may have laid the groundwork for further abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere,” says Jumana Musa of Amnesty International USA.
[New York Times,
===============
More than one-and-a-half years after the deaths of the Afghan detainees Mullah Habibullah (see December 3, 2002) and Dilawar (see December 10, 2002), the US Army Criminal Investigation Command completes its investigation of the two cases. It finds that 28 military personnel, including two captains, were involved in the incident. The perpetrators could be charged with involuntary manslaughter, assault, and conspiracy. A Pentagon official says five or six of the soldiers will likely be charged with the most serious offenses. The investigation concludes that “multiple soldiers” beat Dilawar and Habibullah, using mostly their knees. It is likely, according to Pentagon officials, that the beatings were concentrated on the legs of the detainees, so that wounds would be less visible. Amnesty International severely criticizes the long duration of the investigation. “The failure to promptly account for the prisoners’ deaths indicates a chilling disregard for the value of human life and may have laid the groundwork for further abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere,” says Jumana Musa of Amnesty International USA. [New York Times,
=============