Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
 | The neutrality of this article is disputed. |
In 2005, a 2,000-page U.S. Army report was obtained by the New York Times concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Collection Point. The prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were chained to the ceiling and beaten, which caused their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners' deaths were homicide. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged.
Location
The torture and homocides took place at the military detention center known as the Bagram Collection Point (B.C.P.), which had been built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980-1989). B.C.P. is a concrete-and-sheet-metal facility that was retrofitted with wire pens and wooden isolation cells.
The B.C.P. is part of the Bagram Air Base at the antique city of Bagram near Charikar in Parvan, Afghanistan.
Habibullah
Mr. Habibullah died on December 4 2002 at the hands of several U.S. soldiers. They hit the chained man with so-called "peroneal strikes," or severe blows to the side of the leg above the knee (incapacitates the leg by hitting the common peroneal nerve). According to the New York Times:
- By Dec. 3, Mr. Habibullah's reputation for defiance seemed to make him an open target. [He had taken at least 9 peroneal strikes from two M.P.'s for being "noncompliant and combative."]
- ... When Sgt. James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist. His body was slumped forward, held up by the chains. Sergeant Boland ... had entered the cell with [Specialists Anthony M. Morden and Brian E. Cammack]. ...
- kneeing the prisoner sharply in the thigh, "maybe a couple" of times. Mr. Habibullah's limp body swayed back and forth in the chains.[1]
When medics arrived, they found Mr. Habibullah dead.
Dilawar
Dilawar, who died on December 10 2002, was a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver and farmer who weighed 122 pounds and was described by his interpreters as neither violent nor aggressive.
When beaten, he repeatedly cried "Allah!" The outcry appears to have amused U.S. military personnel, as the act of striking him in order to provoke a scream of "Allah!" eventually "became a kind of running joke," according to one of the MP's. "People kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."
The Times reported that:
- On the day of his death, Dilawar had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
- "A guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
- "Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying. Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen.
- It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.[2]
Investigation
In October 2004, the Army's Criminal Investigation Command concluded that there was probable cause to charge 27 officers and enlisted personnel with criminal offenses in the Dilawar case ranging from dereliction of duty to maiming and involuntary manslaughter. Fifteen of the same soldiers were also cited for probable criminal responsibility in the Habibullah case. Seven soldiers have been charged so far.
Ongoing investigations and prosecutions
 | This article needs to be updated. |
According to an article published in the October 15 2004 New York Times 28 soldiers were under investigation. [3] Some of the soldiers were reservists in the 377th Military Police Company. The 377th was under the command of Captain Christopher M. Beiring. The rest were in the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. They were under the command of Captain Carolyn A. Wood.
As of November 15 2005 charges had been laid against 15 soldiers. [4]
| Soldier | unit | charges |
| Sgt. James P. Boland | 377th MP |
|
| Spc. Brian Cammack | 377th MP |
|
| Pfc. Willie V. Brand | 377th MP |
|
| Sgt. Anthony Morden | 377th MP |
|
| Sgt. Christopher W. Greatorex | 377th MP |
|
| Sgt. Darin M. Broady | 377th MP |
|
| Capt. Christopher M. Beiring | 377th MP | |
| Staff Sgt. Brian L. Doyle | 377th MP |
|
| Sgt. Duane M. Grubb | 377th MP |
|
| Sgt. Alan J. Driver | 377th MP |
|
| Spc. Nathan Adam Jones | 377th MP |
|
| Spc. Glendale C. Walls | 519th MI |
|
| Sgt. Selena M. Salcedo | 519th MI |
|
| Sgt. Joshua Claus | 519th MI |
|
| Pfc. Damien M. Corsetti | 519th MI |
|
Involved but uncharged
Some interrogators involved in this incident were sent to Iraq and were assigned to the now infamous Abu Ghraib prison.
Investigators cited probable cause to charge Specialist Damien Corsetti -- whose nickname was apparently "The Monster" -- with assault, maltreatment of a prisoner and indecent acts at Bagram; he has not been charged. At Abu Ghraib, he forced an Iraqi woman to strip during questioning, for which he was fined and demoted.
Other official reactions
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on May 2005 that "he was shocked by a U.S. Army report on abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, saying his government wanted custody of all Afghan prisoners and control over U.S. military operations."
UN special representative in Afghanistan Jean Arnault "called for firm guarantees that such abuses would not be committed again, and renewed requests for access to prisons and detention facilities by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission."[5]
A widespread pattern of abuse
An editorial of the New York Times noted a parallel with the later abuse and torture of prisoners in Iraq:
- (W)hat happened at Abu Ghraib was no aberration, but part of a widespread pattern. It showed the tragic impact of the initial decision by Mr. Bush and his top advisers that they were not going to follow the Geneva Conventions, or indeed American law, for prisoners taken in antiterrorist operations.
- The investigative file on Bagram, obtained by The Times, showed that the mistreatment of prisoners was routine: shackling them to the ceilings of their cells, depriving them of sleep, kicking and hitting them, sexually humiliating them and threatening them with guard dogs -- the very same behavior later repeated in Iraq.[6]
In November 2001, SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) program's chief psychologist, Col. Morgan Banks, was sent to Afghanistan, where he spent four months at Bagram. In early 2003, Banks issued guidance for the "behavioral science consultants" who helped to devise Guantánamo's interrogation strategy although he has emphatically denied that he had advocated the use of SERE counter-resistance techniques to break down detainees.
Denial of widespread pattern of abuse by U.S. Government
Main article: Periodic Report of the United States of America to the United Nations Committee Against Torture
The United States government, through the State Department makes periodic reports to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. In October 2005, the report focused on pretrial detention of suspects in the War on Terror, including those held in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. This particular Periodic Report is significant as the first official response of the U.S. government to allegations that there is widespread abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan The report denies the allegations.
McCain Amendment
Main article: McCain Detainee Amendment
The McCain Detainee Amendment is a proposed amendment to the United States Senate Department of Defense Authorization bill, commonly referred to as the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977 and also known as the McCain Amendment 1977. The amendment would prohibit inhumane treatment of prisoners. The Amendment was introduced by Senator John McCain, a candidate for the 2000 presidential Republican primary, who is viewed as a likely candidate for 2008. On October 5, 2005, the United States Senate voted 90-9 to support the amendment.[7]
Critics of the bill note with much evidence of a back-room deal between McCain and the White House that the exemption for the CIA makes the entire bill mere public relations. It is CIA activities that are at the forefront of the issue and thus the very purpose of having such a bill in the first place. To exempt the very source of the problem is to give licence to the main source of the problem. Former victims of CIA torture see little that is sincere in McCain's stance on this matter.
See also
- Carolyn Wood
- Dilawar
- Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
- Criticisms of the War on Terrorism
- Guantánamo Bay Qur'an desecration allegations
- U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
- Uses of torture in recent times
- Human Rights Record of the United States
- the salt pit
- Iraq prison abuse scandal
References
- ^ Tim Golden, In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths, mirrored from the New York Times, May 20, 2005. (About U.S. war crimes in Bagram.)
- ^ Tim Golden, Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse, New York Times, May 22, 2005. (More about U.S. war crimes in Bagram.)
- ^ 28 soldiers tied to 2 Afghan deaths, reprint New York Times, October 15 2004
- ^ A look at the soldiers accused in Afghanistan abuse investigation, Akron Beacon Journal, December 5, 2005
- ^ UN Condemns Torture of Afghans, CRI Online, May 22, 2005
- ^ Editorial: Patterns of Abuse, New York Times, May 23, 2005
- ^ McCain Amendment roll call
External links
- America: Incommunicado detention / Fear of ill-treatment, Adil al-Jazeeri, Amnesty International, July 16, 2003 - "Detainees undergoing interrogation by agents of the CIA in the Bagram Air Base have allegedly been subjected to "stress and duress" techniques, including prolonged standing or kneeling, hooding, blindfolding with spray-painted goggles, being kept in painful or awkward positions, sleep deprivation, and 24-hour lighting. Two detainees died at Bagram Air Base in December 2002 in circumstances suggesting that they may have been beaten. The military investigation into the deaths was still ongoing in late June, according to the Pentagon"
- From Bagram to Abu Ghraib, Mother Jones, March 1 2005
- U.S. 'Thumbs Its Nose' at Rights, Amnesty Says by Alan Cowell, New York Times, May 26, 2005