Army Investigation Reveals Wide Involvement in Bagram Deaths

The New York Times reported this morning on the horrifying story of the beating and death of two Afghan prisoners in the Bagram detention center in December 2002, as revealed in the U.S. Army's investigative file on the case.  The Army's Criminal Investigation Command has already indicated that there is probably cause to charge 27 people with criminal offenses in connection with the deaths, but this is the first time that an in-depth account of the circumstances leading to the deaths has been published.

The report shows clearly that the Bush administration's misleading suggestion that terrorists were not protected by the laws of war contributed directly to creating an atmosphere where violent assaults were widely tolerated. 

The documents described by the New York Times make it obvious that brutal treatment of detainees at Bagram was an absolutely routine occurrence.  Both of the men who died had been kept chained to the ceiling of their cells over the course of several days and subjected repeatedly to violent blows to their legs.  One military policeman told investigators, "That was kind of like an accepted thing: you could knee somebody in the leg."

The commander of the military police unit at Bagram, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, said it was standard procedure "that detainees were hooded, shackled and isolated for at least the first 24 hours, sometimes 72 hours of captivity."

The first victim, Mullah Habibullah, was brought into Bagram on November 30, 2002.  He was shackled by the wrists to the ceiling of his cell -- except when taken out for interrogation -- and struck repeatedly by military police over the next three days.  On December 3 he was found slumped forward in his chains, and when his hood was removed "his head was slumped to one side,his tongue sticking out."  Nevertheless one American guard delivered more brutal blows to his leg on the grounds that the prisoner might have spat at him deliberately.  When the guards returned twenty minutes later he was dead.

The other victim, Dilawar, was handed over to the Americans by a local guerrilla commander after being stopped at a checkpoint outside an American base.  He too was chained to the ceiling of his cell and struck repeatedly on the legs.  One guard told investigators that "it became a kind of running joke" to knee him in the legs because he would call out "Allah" when he was hit.  He was also apparently pushed, shoved and kicked during interrogations.  One of the coroners who examined his body after his death said his injuries were comparable to those of "an individual run over by a bus."

Apart from the grotesque nature of the treatment of the two men, what is striking is the evidently routine use of brutal techniques that could not possibly be squared with any understanding of international law.  According to one officer quoted in the report, Sgt. Betty J. Jones, the use of standing restraints, sleep deprivation and peroneal strikes (knee blows to the leg) would have been readily apparent to anyone who passed through the detention center. 

The report makes clear that the confusion about the legal standards that should apply to the detainees created by statements from the highest levels of the Bush administration contributed directly to the abuse they suffered.  One reservist said that because President Bush's had said that neither al-Qaeda terrorists nor members of the Taliban were entitled to prisoner of war status it was acceptable to "deviate slightly" from traditional rules governing interrogation. 

"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sgt. James A. Leahy told investigators.  And the soldiers conducting the interrogations had been told that they should consider the detainees to be terrorists until proved otherwise.

In fact, in international law it is simply incorrect to say that suspected terrorists are not protected from abuse.  The precise legal regime applicable would depend on how the ambiguous situation in Afghanistan in late 2002 was characterized -- whether as American occupation, or U.S. participation in an internal Afghan conflict -- but there is no doubt that violence to life and person, torture, and cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment of detained persons would be forbidden under all circumstances.

The reservist's comments are a particularly telling illustration of how destructive the administration's comments -- based on abstract and radically conservative legal theories -- were on the ground, where inexperienced soldiers needed clear and absolute guidelines about permissible conduct.

Because the notion of fundamental human rights -- which undergirds the idea that all individuals are entitled to be treated with respect even if they are suspected of fighting dishonourably themselves -- is at its most vulnerable in time of war, it is all the more important that it be reinforced with absolute clarity from the top of the military hierarchy. 

Indeed the picture of wanton brutality that emerges from the Bagram file shows clearly that it is particularly important to reinforce an understanding of fundamental rights among soldiers fighting in counter-terrorist or anti-insurgency situations.  Prisoners captured in such conflicts are especially vulnerable to abuse because of the perception that they themselves have flouted the rules of war.  At the same time, because of the difficulty in determining who is really a terrorist or insurgent fighter, there is a much greater risk that the detainees captured in such circumstances -- and at such risk of being brutalized -- are in fact entirely innocent civilians.

As the New York Times reveals, most interrogators at Bagram had concluded that there was no reason for Dilawar to be detained even as guards were administering the final blows that led to his death.

Related Chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know:

Terrorism

Torture

Related Links:

In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths

By Tim Golden

The New York Times, May 20, 2005 (registration required)

Schlesinger Report on DoD Detainee Operations (.pdf file)

August 2004

U.S. Department of Defense Detainee Investigations

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