- Fresh details have emerged of abuse of prisoners by US
troops in Afghanistan.
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- The deaths of two inmates and alleged abuse of others
is detailed by the New York Times citing a 2,000-page document leaked from
a US army investigation.
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- The report says some prisoners were chained to ceilings,
and that a female interrogator stepped on a man's neck and kicked another
in the genitals.
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- Officials in Washington said the abuses were being investigated
and those responsible would be held to account.
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- A Pentagon spokesman said the New York Times was trying
to make a new story out of old material, adding that the investigation
was "very serious and very detailed".
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- "The standard has always been humane treatment for
all detainees. When that standard is not met we will take action,"
the spokesman said.
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- Charges which relate in particular to the two deaths
have been issued against seven US servicemen.
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- The New York Times said it received the report from a
person involved in the US investigation who was critical of the interrogation
methods used at the detention centre at Bagram, north of Kabul, and of
the subsequent inquiry.
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- 'Innocent taxi driver'
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- The key issue in the report covers the treatment of two
Afghans who died in custody at Bagram in December 2002.
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- The detainees who died were a 22-year-old taxi driver
known as Dilawar and a man called Habibullah.
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- The New York Times gives a detailed account from the
leaked report of their treatment.
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- Dilawar had been chained to his cell ceiling by his wrists
for four days and his legs pummelled by guards when he was brought to be
re-interrogated at 0200 hours about an attack on a US air base, it says.
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- After the interrogation he was returned to be chained
up and died before a doctor came to see him.
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- The report says most interrogators believed him to be
an innocent taxi driver who simply drove past at the time of the air-base
attack.
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- One soldier told investigators that when the prisoner
was beaten, "he screamed out Allah, Allah, Allah, and my first reaction
was he was crying out to his God".
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- "It became a running joke and people kept showing
up to give him a strike just to hear him scream Allah... It went on over
a 24-hour period and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."
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- Drums of excrement
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- The US military initially said there was no indication
of abuse in the two men's deaths and that interrogation techniques were
methods that were "generally accepted".
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- After a later inquiry, last October, it emerged that
27 soldiers faced probable criminal charges.
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- Seven of these have since been charged, but no-one has
yet been convicted.
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- The New York Times says: "The file depicts young,
poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment...
went well beyond the two deaths."
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- Reported abuses included a prisoner being forced to kiss
the boots of interrogators and another forced to pick plastic bottle tops
out of a drum mixed with excrement and water.
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- One sergeant told investigators that detainees were considered
terrorists until proven otherwise and that the Geneva Convention only applied
to prisoners of war.
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- © BBC MMV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4566159.stm
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