US prisoner abuse widespread
2004-12-23 12:47
Washington - Documents continue to emerge suggesting that prisoner abuse by US forces in the US-led war on terror is more widespread than just a few overzealous guards at the Abu Ghraib prison north of Baghdad.
Court martials are proceeding against the soldiers linked to the Abu Ghraib abuses, which were made public in April 2004. But dozens of other cases have been handled more discreetly, and some soldiers have been released with mere administrative sanctions.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the largest US civil rights group, has posted on its website ( www.aclu.org) 49 internal military documents describing abuses large and small committed by US soldiers since 2002.
Abuses in Afghanistan, Guantanmo Bay
Most of the documents concern abuses in Iraq, but there is also information on abuses in Afghanistan and at the prison for "enemy combatants" at the US naval base in Guantanmo Bay, Cuba.
The ACLU obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act, often after filing lawsuits against the US government for failing to comply.
Incidents include:
Two soldiers who were ordered to kill a prisoner named Yasir Ahmad Al-Haddi in Camp Bucca, a detention site in southern Iraq, in April 2003. An investigation found the soldiers committed no offence.
On August 2003, US forces arrested Ubaid Raddad during a raid in the city of Tikrit, just north of Baghdad. Days later a US soldier shot and killed Radad. The soldier was demoted and discharged from the army before a murder investigation could get under way.
In December 2003 one Lutfi Abd al-Karim was found dead in his cell four days after he was detained in apparent good health. A medic that examined the body found multiple wounds, but the on-site commanders ordered not to perform an autopsy, then failed to interview anyone involved or collect physical evidence.
Military response
Responding to the ACLU revelations, Pentagon spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel John Skinner said "misconduct is simply not tolerated" and that the "policy has always been and will always remain to treat detainees humanely".
The vast majority of US soldiers "are serving honourably, are upholding our standards and our values", said Skinner.
On Tuesday White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said President George Bush "expects that if there are allegations of abuse, that those allegations need to be taken seriously".
Even if the documented cases are investigated, ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer said, "the question is: why is abuse so widespread?"
According to him, "The policymakers created this culture in which abuse was not just acceptable, but at least in some instances encouraged."