Army Interrogator Sentenced to Five Months (assaulting a detainee - died)

[sabra]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5308840,00.html

Army Interrogator Sentenced to Five Months

Wednesday September 28, 2005 10:01 PM

Associated Press Writer

FORT BLISS, Texas (AP) - An Army interrogator was sentenced to five months in prison Wednesday for assaulting a detainee in Afghanistan who later died.

Sgt. Joshua Claus was the sixth soldier to be convicted of or to plead guilty to abusing detainees following the deaths of two prisoners at the Bagram Airfield detention center. In all, charges were filed against 14.

Claus pleaded guilty to maltreatment and assault, and also to forcing another inmate to kiss a soldier's boots. His sentence included a bad conduct discharge from the military.

The military intelligence soldier said the abuses were the result of frustrations during interrogations. He admitted forcing water down the throat of a detainee known as Dilawar and twisting a hood over the man's head. Dilawar died at the detention center in 2002. No one has been charged with causing his death.

[gratuitous]

1. Well, we surely do value freedom and respect human rights, don't we?

Why aren't our ambassadors pelted with rotten garbage everywhere they appear and try to peddle this claptrap? It's pretty clear that the administration doesn't value freedom, doesn't respect human rights, and even when caught isn't interested in punishing the wrongdoers, but merely sweeping the embarrassment under the rug.

I wonder what heinous crime detainee Dilawar was supposed to have committed? And even if he had been convicted of such a crime, did he deserve to be tortured and killed? Or is that the only treatment "those people" understand?

[ConcernedCanuk]

2. 5 months for murder - medals of honor for genocide

.
.
.

What has the USA become?

Beacon of freedom and democracy do not come to mind

(sigh)

[0007]

3. I agree, this is beyond the pale.

I the Iraqis are sure learning the meaning of Democracy, 'eh?

[Roland99]

6. No, he only assaulted him. The death was the fault of the detainee.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

4. A reminder of who Mr Dilawar was and what was done to him before he died.

One soldier, Pfc. Willie V. Brand, was charged with manslaughter in a closed hearing last month in Texas in connection with one of the deaths, another Army document shows. Private Brand, who acknowledged striking a detainee named Dilawar 37 times, was accused of having maimed and killed him over a five-day period by "destroying his leg muscle tissue with repeated unlawful knee strikes."

The attacks on Mr. Dilawar were so severe that "even if he had survived, both legs would have had to be amputated," the Army report said, citing a medical examiner.

The reports, obtained by Human Rights Watch, provide the first official account of events that led to the deaths of the detainees, Mullah Habibullah and Mr. Dilawar, at the Bagram Control Point, about 40 miles north of Kabul. The deaths took place nearly a year before the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/37/9590\

After five days of intense torture they killed Mr. Dilawar. He suffered greatly before he finally died.

[AlCzervik]

5. So an Iraqi's life is only worth 4 months?

[ninkasi]

7. A more fitting punishment

would have been to turn Sgt. Claus over to Dilawar's family for a period of five days, the same amount of time this sadist took to kill the victim. So being "frustrated" is a valid excuse to commit torture and murder? If I killed every time I got frustrated, there would be a few hundred fewer people in the world.

[Auntie Bush]

8. These 14 "men" deserved what they got and much more....but it is

a shame that all these low level soldiers got their permission and encouragement to torture from bush* et al... and they go free.
May they all get what they deserve here on earth before they go to hell...just in case there isn't any.

I can't believe the people of the US of A choose such a fiendish jerk to be our president! Shame, shame on America! The only thing that can give our country back it's good name is to prove that bush* stole the election...both times... and that we the people didn't really elect him. What a disgrace this administration is to America!