Navy Documents Detail Iraqi Abuse Claims

[maddezmom]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - U.S. Marines forced Iraqi juveniles to kneel while troops discharged a weapon in a mock execution, used electric shock on one prisoner and set fire to a puddle of solvent that burned a prisoner, according to U.S. Navy (news - web sites) documents released Tuesday.


The documents portray a series of abuse cases stretching beyond the Abu Ghraib prison where photos surfaced this year of U.S. troops forcing prisoners — often naked — to pose in humiliating positions. The files document a crush of abuse allegations, most from the early months of the U.S. occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), that have swamped investigators.


The approximately 10,000 files include investigation reports from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and witness interviews.


All names have been blacked out in the documents, which were released under a federal court ruling ordered the government to comply with a Freedom of Information Act petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), the Center for Constitutional Rights and other organizations.

more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=1&u=/ap/20041214/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_prisoner_abuse

[maddezmom]

1. AFP - US Navy documents show probes of other Iraq abuse cases

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041214/pl_afp/usiraqprisoners&cid=1521&ncid=1480

[maddezmom]

2. WaPo: Officers Allegedly Killed Afghan in '02

The Army's Special Operations Command issued an administrative reprimand this year against one of four U.S. military officers in Afghanistan alleged in an Army document to have murdered a local man they believed was following their movements, according to Army officials and a newly disclosed internal document.

~snip~

The reprimand came in what defense officials said yesterday was one of at least eight deaths of Afghans in U.S. military custody since U.S. troops first occupied the country in October 2001 -- a higher number than previously disclosed. Two U.S. servicemen have so far been charged with crimes related to two of the other deaths; the Army has already said charges may be brought against 28 people implicated in one of these deaths.

Yesterday, the executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, Brad Evans, complained about the military's handling of the September 2002 case in an open letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, asking that he "explain what disciplinary or administrative actions were taken by the Department of Defense in this case and the basis for these measures."

Evans also said in his letter that his group's investigation indicates that the military detention system in Afghanistan "continues to operate outside the rule of law." He complained in particular about the indefinite detention of some Afghans and persistent allegations of abuse at U.S. military prisons at bases near Gardez, Khost, Urgon, Ghazni and Jalalabad -- mostly in the vicinity of the Pakistan border.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62089-2004Dec13.html