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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Government Secrecy : International Relations : Prisons : Regime
U.S. Army Destroyed Mock Execution Pictures Current rating: 0
18 Feb 2005
Pictures of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions were destroyed after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq to avoid another public outrage, Army documents released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union show.

``It's increasingly clear that members of the military were aware of the allegations of torture and that efforts were taken to erase evidence, to shut down investigations and to humiliate the detainees in an effort to silence them,'' ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Pictures of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan posing with hooded and bound detainees during mock executions were destroyed after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq to avoid another public outrage, Army documents released Friday by the American Civil Liberties Union show.

The results of an Army probe of the photographs were among hundreds of pages of documents released after the ACLU obtained a federal court order in Manhattan to let it see documents about U.S. treatment of detainees around the world.

The ACLU said the probe shows the rippling effect of the Abu Ghraib scandal and that efforts to humiliate the enemy might have been more widespread than thought.

``It's increasingly clear that members of the military were aware of the allegations of torture and that efforts were taken to erase evidence, to shut down investigations and to humiliate the detainees in an effort to silence them,'' ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said.

The Army did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

The probe of the pictures in Afghanistan began after a CD found there during a July office cleanup contained pictures of uniformed soldiers pointing guns at bound and hooded detainees.

The investigation showed that the pictures were taken in and around Fire Base Tycze in southern Afghanistan, according to the documents, which blacked out the identities of those interviewed.

An Army specialist told investigators that similar photographs were destroyed after images of torture at Abu Ghraib were leaked to the media.

Another Army specialist admitted he was photographed standing behind a prisoner while holding a weapon to his head, according to the released records. The specialist told investigators he considered those kinds of pictures bad because they would enrage the public.

The probe established probable cause to believe eight soldiers committed dereliction of duty when they jokingly pointed weapons at bound detainees and took pictures, the Army records show.

Earlier documents released by the ACLU had primarily been from the FBI. The ACLU also is seeking documents from the CIA and the Department of Defense.

Other Army documents released Friday outlined the case of an Iraqi detainee who said Americans in civilian clothes beat him, dislocated his arms, fired an unloaded pistol into his mouth and beat his leg with a bat before making him denounce his abuse claims to win release. A criminal file on the alleged abuse was closed because the probe could not prove or disprove the claims.

The Army documents also describe a probe into complaints by senior psychological operations officers in Afghanistan that they saw assaults by special forces on civilians during raids in May 2004 in the villages of Gurjay and Sukhagen.

That investigation was suspended because the victims could not be interviewed and prospective witnesses were enemy forces, the Army said in its documents.


Copyright 2005 The Associated Press
http://www.ap.org/

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G.I.'s Under Inquiry in Killings of 2 Afghans
Current rating: 0
18 Feb 2005
SHINDAND, Afghanistan, Feb. 17 - Several American soldiers are under investigation in the shooting deaths of two Afghan villagers last Friday afternoon outside the United States base here in western Afghanistan, the commander of the base, Lt. Col. Ashton Hayes, said Thursday.

Witnesses and local officials said the two villagers were shot as they fled across a field. Two witnesses said in an interview that two American soldiers then approached one of the Afghans, who was wounded, and shot him dead at close range.

"They did it on purpose, I think," said Muhammad Ismail, 30, the brother of Naib, 22, whom friends said they saw being shot as he lay on the ground. "I am really angry about the Americans." The witnesses said the Americans were Special Forces soldiers, but that could not be confirmed.

The incident has angered the residents of Moghalan, a village nearby where the two men lived, and prompted a demonstration on Saturday where young men shouted, "Death to America."

American troops have had a base at the old Soviet airfield at Shindand since last August, and the local district chief said the deaths could stir up animosity in the area, a strategic region that borders Iran.

"It affected the community very strongly," said the chief, Muhammad Amin Kamin. "It is very sensitive. The people can become independent and fight against the Americans."

Colonel Hayes said the military was taking the case "very seriously." He said that investigators were on their way from Kabul, and that the battalion would work to make amends to the villagers. The soldiers under investigation were still at the base, he said, but he would not give any further details.

The men who were killed, Naib, and Rasul, also 22, were cutting firewood beside the road at 5 p.m. when a car of Afghan National Army soldiers drove past, followed by Special Forces soldiers in a black sport utility vehicle. At the sight of the S.U.V., the two men dropped their work and fled across the field toward the village, said two witnesses, Taj Muhammad, 22, and Hamidullah, 22, both friends of the dead men who were sitting nearby chatting with a third friend as they watched over a flock of sheep.

They said they saw four American soldiers with weapons get out of the vehicle. Two of the Americans fired on the fleeing men, cutting them both down, the witnesses said. The two friends said they watched as the Americans approached Rasul, picked him up and then dropped him. "He fell down, and then we realized he was dead," Mr. Muhammad said.

The Americans then approached Naib who was still moving. "He was lying face down, and his hand was out to the side," Mr. Muhammad said. "When they approached, he moved it and tried to put weight on it. The Americans came and shot him." The two said one American fired three shots into the chest of Naib.

Frightened, the three witnesses hid behind a garden wall, but kept watching, they said. They said one of the American soldiers aimed his weapon at them and seconds later a bullet struck the wall. Afghan police officers walking over the scene of the shooting on Thursday found a small splayed bullet on the ground beside the wall.

Sayed Ahmad, the district criminal investigator, examined the scene the day after the shootings and gathered two bullet casings from an assault rifle at the side of the road, and three spent casings from a pistol on the ground where the bodies had been lying, which he said corroborated the account of one American firing three bullets into the prone body of Naib. The police handed the spent casings to Colonel Hayes.

Afghan National Army troops took the bodies to the local hospital two hours after the shootings, with the lead doctor, Jabar Khan.

Dr. Khan said Naib's body was drenched in blood and full of bullet holes in the chest and upper arms. The amount of blood indicated that Naib had not died instantly, Dr. Khan said.

Rasul had been shot through the heart, Dr. Khan said. His body had three bullets holes in the chest, with exit wounds in the back, which suggested that he had turned around at the moment he was hit, the doctor said.

The first reports in the local press said that American forces had killed two members of Al Qaeda, and that three more had escaped. But Colonel Hayes said it was clear to him that the victims were just villagers, and he confirmed that the military had given each of the families $2,000 to help them through their immediate difficulties.

"We have no reason to say there were Taliban or Al Qaeda," Colonel Hayes said, adding that in the few weeks he had been based in Shindand he had seen no evidence of Taliban or Al Qaeda activity in the area.

"I can only say it was a mistake," the district chief, Mr. Kamin, said. "They had no weapons, they are from a poor family."

Rasul's father, Nasrullah, said, "We are hurting inside," as women at his home began wailing and weeping.

But it was the suspicion that a wounded man had been killed that most angered local residents.

Muhammad Karim, an elder of the village, went to meet the Colonel Hayes on behalf of the families and said he told him as much.

"We told the Americans: 'You Americans are always insisting on human rights in the world. But in war, when your enemy is injured, you do not have the right to shoot him, and you shot him with three pistol shots.' " The Americans denied shooting the wounded man, Mr. Karim said.

Colonel Hayes declined to talk about details of the shootings, citing the investigation. "I cannot comment on that, and I have no knowledge of that myself," he said of reports that a wounded man had been shot. He said that the battalion was in a "very serious security situation" at the time of the shooting, but would not elaborate.


Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com