---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delivered-To: •••@••.••• Reply-To: "Global Network" <•••@••.•••> From: "Global Network" <•••@••.•••> To: "Global Network Against Weapons" <•••@••.•••> Subject: AFGHAN PRISONERS BEATEN TO DEATH AT U.S. BASE Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 22:33:51 -0500 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0307-04.htm Published on Friday, March 7, 2003 by the Guardian/UK Afghan Prisoners Beaten to Death at US Military Interrogation Base by Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles Two prisoners who died while being held for interrogation at the US military base in Afghanistan had apparently been beaten, according to a military pathologist's report. A criminal investigation is now under way into the deaths which have both been classified as homicides. The deaths have led to calls for an inquiry into what interrogation techniques are being used at the base where it is believed the al-Qaida leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is now also being held. Former prisoners at the base claim that detainees are chained to the ceiling, shackled so tightly that the blood flow stops, kept naked and hooded and kicked to keep them awake for days on end. The two men, both Afghans, died last December at the US forces base in Bagram, north of Kabul, where prisoners have been held for questioning. The autopsies found they had suffered "blunt force injuries" and classified both deaths as homicides. A spokesman for the Pentagon said yesterday it was not possible to discuss the details of the case because of the proceeding investigation. If the investigation finds that the prisoners had been unlawfully killed during interrogation, it could lead to both civil and military prosecutions. He added that it was not clear whether only US personnel had had access to the men. One of the dead prisoners, known only as Dilawar, died as a result of "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease", according to the death certificate signed by Major Elizabeth Rouse, a pathologist with the Washington-based Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which operates under the auspices of the defense department. The dead man was aged 22 and was a farmer and part-time taxi-driver. He was said to have had an advanced heart condition and blocked arteries. Chris Kelly, a spokesman for the institute, said yesterday that their pathologists were involved in all cases on military bases where there were unusual or suspicious deaths. He was not aware of any other homicides of prisoners held since September 11. He said that the definition of homicide was "death resulting from the intentional or grossly reckless behavior of another person or persons" but could also encompass "self-defense or justifiable killings". The death certificates for the men have four boxes on them giving choices of "natural, accident, suicide, homicide". The Pentagon said yesterday that the choice of "homicide" did not necessarily mean that the dead person had been unlawfully killed. There was no box which would indicate that a pathologist was uncertain how a person had died. It is believed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, described as the number three in al-Qaida, is being interrogated at Bagram. He is said to have started providing information about the possible whereabouts of Osama bin Laden whom he is said to have met in Pakistan last month. Most al-Qaida suspects are being held outside the US which means that they are not entitled to access to the US judicial system. Two former prisoners at the base, Abdul Jabar and Hakkim Shah, told the New York Times this week that they recalled seeing Dilawar at Bagram. They said that they had been kept naked, hooded and shackled and were deprived of sleep for days on end. Mr Shah said that American guards kicked him to stop him falling asleep and that on one occasion he had been kicked by a woman interrogator, while her male colleague held him in a kneeling position. The commander of the coalition forces in Afghanistan, General Daniel McNeill, said that prisoners were made to stand for long periods but he denied that they were chained to the ceiling. "Our interrogation techniques are adapted," he said. "They are in accordance with what is generally accepted as interrogation techniques, and if incidental to the due course of this investigation, we find things that need to be changed, we will certainly change them." In January, in his state of the union address, President George Bush announced that "3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries" and "many others have met a different fate" and "are no longer a problem to the United States". The other death being investigated is that of Mullah Habibullah, the brother of a former Taliban commander. His death certificate indicates that he died of a pulmonary embolism, or a blood clot in the lung. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0306-05.htm Published on Thursday, March 6, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times Rights on the Rack Alleged Torture in Terror War Imperils U.S. Standards of Humanity by Jonathan Turley In Afghanistan, it is hardly surprising to find two dead bodies with signs of torture. This week, however, a shocking U.S. military coroner's report also suggested that the most likely suspect in the homicides was the U.S. government. Even more disturbing is emerging evidence that the United States may be operating something that would have seemed unimaginable only two years ago: an American torture facility. Credible reports now indicate that the government, with the approval of high-ranking officials, is engaging in systematic techniques considered by many to be torture. U.S. officials have admitted using techniques that this nation previously denounced as violations of international law. One official involved in the "interrogation center" in Afghanistan said "if you don't violate someone's human rights, you probably aren't doing your job." For months, international human rights groups have been protesting activities at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. In a closed-off part of the base, the CIA has constructed an "interrogation center" out of metal shipping containers. Last year, reports began to surface that the CIA was getting information the old-fashioned way -- by breaking suspects physically, except when they inconveniently die. There is a striking consistency to these accounts, including those from unnamed U.S. officials. Following the arrest of terrorist suspect Abu Zubeida last year after he was shot in the chest, groin and thigh, U.S. officials admitted withholding painkillers as an inducement to force information from him. For part of his interrogation, John Walker Lindh was held naked in an unheated metal container in the dead of winter and duct-taped to a stretcher with a bullet in his leg. The latest allegation concerns two men who died while guests of the CIA. According to the military coroner, both men show "blunt force trauma" that contributed to their deaths. They died within a week of each other at the base, one of a pulmonary embolism and one of a heart attack. Both cases are now officially listed as homicides. One U.S. official is quoted as predicting that "this investigation will not go well for us." U.S. Special Forces troops have been accused of beating suspects before turning them over for exposure to other techniques, such as being kept awake for days or forced to stand or kneel for long periods in painful positions. Witnesses also reported the use of bright lights and loud noises to reduce suspects to blithering idiots through sleep deprivation. To the amazement of the international community, the U.S. government has openly admitted that it is now using such "stress and duress techniques." These practices would be unconstitutional -- if not criminal -- if committed in the United States. However, the government insists that it can use the techniques abroad and that they fall just short of a technical definition of torture. Respected international organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and other groups disagree and have condemned the techniques as flagrant violations of international law. Though not declaring them to be torture, the European Court of Human Rights found in 1978 that identical practices used by the British in Ireland were "inhuman" and in violation of various international agreements. Among the violations is the denial of rights under the Geneva Convention, which states in Article 17 that "no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatsoever." There is no retroactive clause: The U.S. cannot round up suspects, torture them and, if they die, retroactively label them enemy combatants outside of the Geneva Convention. The Bush administration position is also dangerously shortsighted: Its alleged use of torture puts every service member in any Iraq war at risk. Saddam Hussein can now cite the U.S. in support of his taste for torture. Hussein missed his opportunity to market his services. When U.S. techniques have proved unavailing, officials have transferred suspects to countries that we have previously denounced for grotesque violations of human rights. Suspects are simply shipped to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Morocco with a list of questions for more crude torture techniques. One official involved in these interrogations explained that "we don't kick the [expletive] out of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them." This week, West Virginia Sen. John D. Rockefeller actually encouraged the U.S. to hand over the recently arrested Al Qaeda suspect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to another country for torture. Whatever legal distinction Rockefeller sees in using surrogates to do our torturing, it is hardly a moral distinction. As a result, we are now driving the new market for torture-derived information. We have gone from a nation that once condemned torture to one that contracts out for torture services. Instead of continuing our long fight against torture, we now seek to adopt more narrow definitions to satisfy our own acquired appetite for coercive interrogations. If the U.S. is responsible for the deaths of the two men in Afghanistan, it is more than homicide. It would be suicide for a nation once viewed as the very embodiment of human rights. Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University. Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 (352) 871-7554 (Cell phone) <http://www.space4peace.org>http://www.space4peace.org <mailto:•••@••.•••>•••@••.•••
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