No Court-Martial for Officer in Afghan Abuse Case
Associated Press
Sunday, January 8, 2006; Page A10
FORT BLISS, Tex., Jan. 7 -- The only officer charged in a 2002 Afghanistan prisoner abuse case will not face a court-martial.
Capt. Christopher M. Beiring said Army prosecutors told him on Friday that the charges of dereliction of duty and making a false official statement have been dropped by Fort Bliss officials.
Beiring was in charge of a Cincinnati-based reservist military police company stationed at a detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, when two prisoners died in December 2002. Beiring and 10 of his soldiers were charged in the case. Four military intelligence interrogators from Fort Bragg, N.C., were also charged in the investigation.
An Army colonel assigned to investigate the charges against Beiring, 39, recommended last month that he not face a court-martial.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/07/AR2006010701386.html?nav=rss_nation~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
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In 2005, a 2,000-page U.S. Army report suggests the possibiliy of abuse, not torture with the connection of the deaths of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners suspected to be Taliban by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Collection Point. In addition to assaulting the prison guards to which they were legally restrained by physical force, Habibullah and Dilawar were chained to the ceiling and beaten which contributed to their deaths. Military coroners did not immediately ruled the first death a homicide but did the second. Autopsies of the two dead detainees revealed severe trauma to both prisoners' legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Dilawar, one of the two dead prisoners:
Dilawar
Dilawar, 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>
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#Dilawar
Dilawar, and his three brothers
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