[A-List] Afghanistan: another scandal brewing

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

US faces fresh scandal over Afghan prisoners
CAMERON SIMPSON
The Herald, May 14 2004

AMERICA was facing a new abuse scandal last night after forces in
Afghanistan were accused of the systemic mistreatment of prisoners, a day
after the US army in Kabul launched a fresh inquiry into beating and sexual
mistreatment at secret jails.

The accusation, levelled by Human Rights Watch, was delivered as the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a separate report
criticising the detention of hundreds of suspects at the US naval base in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Human Rights Watch demanded information on how two Afghans died in US
custody 18 months ago and called for wider access to detention centres where
hundreds of al Qaeda and other Islamic militant suspects are held.

A spokesman for the US Criminal Investigation Command, looking into the two
deaths at Bagram air base in December 2002, said an investigation was
ongoing.
"We are close to completing our investigation, and we will forward it to the
appropriate commanders for disposition," he said. He referred a query about
a third Afghan death at a jail near Asadabad in June 2003 to the justice
department.

The US military in Kabul opened an inquiry earlier this week into complaints
by a former police officer that he was beaten, kicked, taunted, sexually
abused and photographed naked during about 40 days in US custody in
Afghanistan last summer.

The US-led force of 20,000 troops hunting al Qaeda and the Taliban is keen
to contain fallout from the complaint, having faced a backlash throughout
the Arab world for the abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

John Sifton, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch, said: "Afghans
have been telling us for well over a year about mistreatment in US custody.

"Mistreatment of prisoners by US military and intelligence personnel in
Afghanistan is systemic and not limited to a few isolated cases."

A Pentagon official said the ICRC report had been described to Donald
Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, as "critical".

The official noted that the Red Cross had repeatedly complained about the
imprisonment at Guantanamo of more than 500 people, most of them captured in
Afghanistan, in stark cells for up to two years or more without charges.

Florian Westphal, ICRC spokesman in Geneva, confirmed the agency had handed
over a confidential report on Guantanamo to US authorities as part of its
standard procedure, but declined to give details.