[Media-watch] HRW says US fails to investigate abuses in Afghanistan - NYTimes - 13/12/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/international/asia/13cnd-afgh.html

Rights Group Says U.S. Fails to Investigate Abuses in Afghanistan
By CARLOTTA GALL




Published: December 13, 2004


KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 13 - Human Rights Watch said today that new cases 
of deaths of men in United States custody in Afghanistan have come to light 
and accused the Defense Department of operating outside the law in the 
country and failing to investigate abuses, including murder.

In an open letter to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, the New 
York-based human rights organization described the deaths of three 
detainees, including one of a member of the newly established Afghan Army, 
that have emerged recently. Six men are now known to have died in American 
custody, the organization said, and only two people have been charged in 
connection with the deaths.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. John Skinner, said today that Defense 
Department officials went to "enormous lengths to investigate any credible 
allegations of detainee abuse," according to The Associated Press.

"We've looked at detention operations from A to Z," he said, without 
specifically discussing the cases raised by Human Rights Watch.

The United States continues to hold Afghan detainees in legal limbo and in 
many cases incommunicado, in violation of American obligations under the 
laws of armed conflict and applicable Afghan law, the letter said. 
Allegations of abuse and arbitrary detention continue to surface at bases 
around the country, it said.

Failure to investigate and prosecute abuses created a culture of impunity 
among some interrogators, and allowed abuse to spread, in particular to the 
Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the organization said in a statement issued with 
the letter.

"It's time for the United States to come clean about crimes committed by 
U.S. forces in Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, Asia division director for 
Human Rights Watch.

The three new accounts of detainee deaths include one from 2002 that became 
public last week after internal Department of Defense documents were 
released to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a Freedom of 
Information Act request. According to the documents, an Afghan man was 
murdered in or before September 2002 by four American soldiers, a captain 
and three sergeants, after they detained him for tracking their movements in 
Afghanistan. The case was investigated in 2002 but no one was prosecuted, 
Human Rights Watch said.

The other two cases emerged in media reports. Jamal Naseer, a soldier in the 
U.S.-backed official Afghan Army, was killed in March 2003 after he and 
seven other soldiers were mistakenly arrested by American forces and taken 
to a base in Gardez, southeast of Kabul. The men were badly beaten, Human 
Rights Watch said, citing reports by the United Nations office in Gardez, 
the office of the attorney general of the Afghan Army, and the Crimes of War 
project.

The Army Criminal Investigative Command opened an investigation into the 
case in May 2004 but has not charged anyone.

The latest case is of Sher Mohammad Khan, who was arrested on Sept. 24, 
2004, during a raid on his family's home near Khost in eastern Afghanistan 
and died the next day at an American base. His brother was shot and killed 
by U.S. forces during the raid. The family reported bruises on Sher Mohammad 
Khan's body when they retrieved it, said Human Rights Watch said, which 
called for an immediate investigation into the death.

Human Rights Watch had already documented the deaths of three other 
detainees. Two Afghan men died in detention at the United States airb ase at 
Bagram in December 2002, and their deaths were ruled homicides by American 
pathologists at the time. A third man, Abdul Wali, died in June 2003 in a 
forward operating base in Kunar province.

Only two people have been charged in connection with the deaths and the 
investigations have stalled, Human Rights Watch said.

There are other reports of deaths of detainees in Afghanistan not mentioned 
by the Human Rights Watch. In a case cited by the Afghan Independent Human 
Rights Commission, an Afghan called Abdul Wahed died in the American special 
forces bases at Gereshk in southern Afghanistan in November 2003. He was 
tortured by the Afghan commander guarding the base and then handed over to 
United States forces when close to death, the American military has 
admitted. No charges have been brought and the Afghan commander continues to 
work with the special forces at the base.
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