Ex-CIA Contractor Passaro To Stand Trial In Afghan Beating Death

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http://www.wral.com/news/9634246/detail.html

RALEIGH, N.C. -- In the weeks after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal stunned Iraq, a story emerged from Afghanistan about a CIA contractor named David Passaro, a former Special Forces medic accused of beating an Afghan detainee so severely that he later died.

More than three years later, after several soldiers working at Abu Ghraib have been sentenced to prison, Passaro will finally stand trial when jury selection begins Monday -- in a civilian court in his home state of North Carolina. He is the first, and so far only, civilian to be charged with mistreating a detainee during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To bring charges against Passaro, who as a civilian isn't subject to military justice, prosecutors turned to the USA Patriot Act, arguing the law passed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks allows the government to charge U.S. nationals with crimes committed on land or facilities designated for use by the U.S. government. snip

Passaro, a 39-year-old from Lillington, N.C., has insisted he is innocent, calling the charges a "knee-jerk reaction" by the Bush administration to the Abu Ghraib scandal. To prove it, his attorneys have said they wanted to call former CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, formerly the White House counsel, as part of a "public authority defense" -- namely, that Passaro was following orders.