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Pentagon Records Detail Prisoner Abuse by US Military
By Lara Jakes Jordan
The Associated Press
Thursday 17 April 2008
Washington - Military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using
investigation methods they learned during self-defense training, Pentagon documents
released Wednesday show.
Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in southeastern Afghanistan reported
being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in
the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, according to the documents.
A 2006 Army review concluded that the detainees were not abused but that the
incident revealed "misconduct that warrants further action."
The documents, which were turned over Wednesday evening to the American Civil
Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who
died in U.S. custody at the Gardez facility.
The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including
Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.
The Army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser's death. But the documents
include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees
- a technique they learned during survival training at the Army's SERE school.
SERE stands for Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape.
"You say you gave permission for (redacted) to hit detainees during interrogations;
did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorizing
that?" a military criminal investigator asked one of the interrogators,
according to a November 2004 transcript among the more than 300 pages of documents.
"No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one," the interrogator
answered, according to the transcript. "I used tactics that were used in
SERE."
The investigator continued: "Did you see (redacted) hit detainees during
the interviews?"
"Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches," the interrogator answered.
In another interview that day, according to the documents, the Army investigator
asks whether "you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water
and snow mix on persons captured?"
"They do spray cold water on prisoners," the interrogator answered,
referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in
his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques are taught at
SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors.
She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.
"They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods,"
Singh said. "This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods
that were being applied in Afghanistan."
SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq
and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Singh said.
The Pentagon and the Army did not immediately respond to requests for comment
Wednesday evening.
The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser's death was among a string of probes into
alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. jails in Afghanistan.
Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners
at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan
ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across
Afghanistan.
Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and
20 days. The Army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.
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Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
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