Revealed: U.S. Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens of Detainees

[G_j]

I think this needs reposting:


http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/139867/revealed%3A_u.s._interrogators_may_have_killed_dozens_of_detainees/

Revealed: U.S. Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens of Detainees
By John Byrne, Raw Story. Posted May 6, 2009.

In all, 98 detainees have died while in U.S. hands, with 34 identified as homicides, at least eight of which were tortured to death.


United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.

In all, 98 detainees have died while in U.S. hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees -- and as many as 12 -- having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.

The researcher, John Sifton, worked for five years for Human Rights Watch. In a posting Tuesday, he documents myriad cases of detainees who died at the hands of their U.S. interrogators. Some of the instances he cites are graphic.

Most of those taken captive were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. They include at least one Afghani soldier, Jamal Naseer, who was mistakenly arrested in 2004. “Those arrested with Naseer later said that during interrogations U.S. personnel punched and kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables,” Sifton writes. “Some said they were doused with cold water and forced to lie in the snow. Nasser collapsed about two weeks after the arrest, complaining of stomach pain, probably an internal hemorrhage.”

Another Afghan killing occurred in 2002. Mohammad Sayari was killed by four U.S. servicemembers after being detained for allegedly “following their movements.” A Pentagon document obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005 said that the Defense Department found a captain and three sergeants had “murdered” Sayari, but the section dealing with the department’s probe was redacted.

..more..

[billyoc]

1. Why not, they're never going to be seen or heard from again anyway.

[centristgrandpa]

9. rendition?

Your statement is somewhat demented if what you write is in plain text...

[billyoc]

10. Whatif I repost it in UTF-8?

EBCDIC?
Italics?

[centristgrandpa]

12. Unicode?

Are you saying "let by-gones, be by-gones". I say this with respect.

[LeFleur1]

2. So Not Only Does Our Government Tolerate Torture

We now tolerate murder. How proud I am of my country.

[obliviously]

3. I wonder

if they talked before we wasted them?

[lunatica]

4. In 2004 the CIA Inspector General wrote a top secret report about it

http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/845-cia-watchdog-report-says-detainees-died-during-interrogations.html

CIA Watchdog Report Says Detainees Died During Interrogations
Written by Jason Leopold
20 April 2009


CIA Inspector General John Helgerson raised concerns in a 2004 top-secret report his office prepared about the legality of the interrogation techniques agency interrogators used against admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In the report, Helgerson concluded that the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program “appeared to constitute cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, as defined by the International Convention Against Torture” and the interrogation of Mohammed “could expose agency officers to legal liability,” according to a Nov. 9, 2005 report published in the New York Times.

Now, thanks to the release last week of four Justice Department “torture” memos Helgerson’s concerns make sense.

In a footnote to a May 30, 2005 memo issued by Steven Bradbury, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, the same month he was captured. The of times Mohammed was waterboarded was first reported by blogger Marcy Wheeler over the weekend.

Another footnote said that “in some cases the waterboard was used with far greater frequency than initially indicated” and with larger quantities of water than permitted under written guidelines.

Both footnotes directly reference Helgerson’s report and the memo, along with two others issued by Bradbury in May 2005, appears to address specific conclusions Helgerson's report raised questions about the legality of the “enhanced interrogations.”

According to the Times report, Helgerson’s investigation into the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” program, launched in 2003, “expressed skepticism the treaty does not apply to CIA interrogations because they take place overseas on people who are not citizens of the United States.”

more...

[Usrename]

19. Also, the ACLU exposed some of these crimes back in 2005.

snip>

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released documents of forty-four autopsies held in Afghanistan and Iraq October 25, 2005. Twenty-one of those deaths were listed as homicides. The documents show that detainees died during and after interrogations by Navy SEALs, Military Intelligence, and Other Government Agency (OGA).

“These documents present irrefutable evidence that U.S. operatives tortured detainees to death during interrogation,” said Amrit Singh, an attorney with the ACLU. “The public has a right to know who authorized the use of torture techniques and why these deaths have been covered up.”


http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/7-us-operatives-torture-detainees-to-death-in-afghanistan-and-iraq

[ConcernedCanuk]

5. DOH! - only the USA electorate would doubt it . .

.
.
.

The World knows.

USA was initiated by killing the natives

USA still kills whoever it sees as an obstacle to its domination

Only the USA citizens are fooled,

the World isn't.

[gratuitous]

6. If Nancy Pelosi knew about it, it's her fault

Thus sayeth the minority party and the major media outlets.

No, it doesn't make sense, but you're a traitor if you don't believe it.

Glad I could clear this up.

[obliviously]

7. We should

lock pelosi up with the survivors for a week then bring her out and ask her how much she knew about the torture.

[spanone]

8. i'm sure the sensation of drowning puts some into cardiac arrest...it's not very pleasant

[centristgrandpa]

11. what about the other secret prisons?

This is the by-product of evil re-framing, the Constitution mirrors our country's soul, nothing more, nothing less...I sense that the numbers will be greater than what's reveal...too bad for those folks who had nothing to do with terrorism.

[G_j]

14. yes, I believe these numbers

are extremely conservative. We will never really know the whole truth.

[obliviously]

16. Give me an hour

with Nancy Pelosi an Dick Cheney with a box of thumb nail screws and I will tell you.

[centristgrandpa]

17. let's start and end with dick the great...

You're suggestion is somewhat med-evil, shouldn't we use the new age convenience, water boarding? Based on the GOP, it's quite useful and has measure desires any torturer nut could use like king henry thee 8th and dick.

[Wednesdays]

13. K&R

:kick:

[Solly Mack]

15. K&R

Torture. Murder. Rape. Various other war crimes & crimes against humanity

and here America sits....trying to decide if a law has been broken.

I hear it all the time... "IF" laws have been broken then we'll do X.

[chill_wind]

18. K & R n/t

[KoKo]

20. Dozens is likely the low figure...we may never know about the others who were

"disappeared."

[flyarm]

21. A spokesman for the air base confirmed that the official cause of death : HOMICIDE

don't forget this...after the congress got to see the photo's and video's..

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters, "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience." He did not elaborate.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/08/iraq/main6163 ...

edit to add.. there is no statue of limitations on murder..remember that!!


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

America admits suspects died in interrogations

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles


Friday, 7 March 2003

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/po ...


American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul – reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.


American military officials acknowledged yesterday that two prisoners captured in Afghanistan in December had been killed while under interrogation at Bagram air base north of Kabul – reviving concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.

A spokesman for the air base confirmed that the official cause of death of the two men was "homicide", contradicting earlier accounts that one had died of a heart attack and the other from a pulmonary embolism.

The men's death certificates, made public earlier this week, showed that one captive, known only as Dilawar, 22, from the Khost region, died from "blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease" while another captive, Mullah Habibullah, 30, suffered from blood clot in the lung that was exacerbated by a "blunt force injury".

US officials previously admitted using "stress and duress" on prisoners including sleep deprivation, denial of medication for battle injuries, forcing them to stand or kneel for hours on end with hoods on, subjecting them to loud noises and sudden flashes of light and engaging in culturally humiliating practices such as having them kicked by female officers.

While the US claims this still constitutes "humane" treatment, human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have denounced it as torture as defined by international treaty. The US has also come under heavy criticism for its reported policy of handing suspects over to countries such as Jordan, Egypt or Morocco, where torture techniques are an established part of the security apparatus. Legally, Human Rights Watch says, there is no distinction between using torture directly and subcontracting it out.

[ControlledDemolition]

22. The CIA prefers the term 'terminate with extreme prejudice'! n/t

[lonestarnot]

24. Permanent sleep state.

[L. Coyote]

23. I bet they couldn't wait to tell Pelosi!

:sarcasm:

[The Wizard]

27. But Pelosi may have known something

and that supersedes war crimes and even genocide committed by the Bush cartel and promoted by the Republican media.
That the Republicans have confessed to war crimes is the real story. That their media/propaganda organs put the focus on what Nancy Pelosi may have known while a member of a marginalized minority is another story that needs exposure.
The Republican propaganda machine must be shut down by any means necessary. And we thought these scumbags were defeated in 1945.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. Probably ate bad apples.

But just a few, mind you.

[sojourner]

26. sickening....but needs to be made MORE public

I remember this from back then. The media, the pundits, the congress and the president all act as though this is not a known fact. Maybe its time for somebody of some stature to take this to the public in a BIG way?

[MasonJar]

28. How can Obama continue to ignore such substantial evidence? He

knows a1000 times more than Nancy Pelosi and yet will not engage a Special Prosecutor. He does not get any cooperation from the GOPers anyway, and even if he did, Obama should follow the law and the Geneva Conventions, which require the ivestigation and prosecution of war criminals. Once he chooses a SP Obama is out of the loop anyway.