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US interrogators may have killed dozens, human rights researcher and rights group say
John Byrne
Raw Story
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
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 US 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 US 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.
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Perhaps the most macabre case occurred in Iraq, which was documented in a Human Rights First report in 2006.
“Nagem Sadoon Hatab… a 52-year-old Iraqi, was killed while in U.S. custody at a holding camp close to Nasiriyah,” the group wrote. “Although a U.S. Army medical examiner found that Hatab had died of strangulation, the evidence that would have been required to secure accountability for his death – Hatab’s body – was rendered unusable in court. Hatab’s internal organs were left exposed on an airport tarmac for hours; in the blistering Baghdad heat, the organs were destroyed; the throat bone that would have supported the Army medical examiner’s findings of strangulation was never found.”
In another graphic instance, a former Iraqi general was beaten by US forces and suffocated to death. The military officer charged in the death was given just 60 days house arrest.
“Abed Hamed Mowhoush [was] a former Iraqi general beaten over days by U.S. Army, CIA and other non-military forces, stuffed into a sleeping bag, wrapped with electrical cord, and suffocated to death,” Human Rights First writes. “In the recently concluded trial of a low-level military officer charged in Mowhoush’s death, the officer received a written reprimand, a fine, and 60 days with his movements limited to his work, home, and church.”
Another Iraqi man was killed in a US detention facility on Mosul in 2003.
“U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions,” the rights group writes. “Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded. No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case.”
Death from interrogation is hard to separate from simple detainee death while in US custody. But one particular case stands out that seems to have fallen by the wayside — the murder of CIA “ghost” detainee named Manadel al-Jamadi, who was tortured to death by a CIA team at Abu Ghraib in 2003.
“Pictures of Abu Ghraib guards Charles Graner and Sabrina Harman posing with al-Jamadi’s dead body, the so-called Ice Man, were among the most notorious of the Abu Ghraib photographs published in April 2004,” Sifton notes. “A CIA officer named Mark Swanner and an interpreter led the team that interrogated al-Jamadi. Nine Navy personnel were also implicated. An autopsy conducted by the U.S. military five days after al-Jamadi’s death found that the cause: “blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration.”
“Reporting by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and NPR’s John McChesney revealed that al-Jamadi was strung up from handcuffs behind his back, a torture tactic sometimes called a ‘Palestinian hanging,’” he adds. “After an investigation, the CIA referred the case to the Department of Justice for possible criminal prosecution of the CIA personnel involved, but no charges were ever brought. Prosecutors accused 10 Navy personnel of the crime; nine were given nonjudicial punishments, such as rank reductions and letters of reprimand, and a 10th was acquitted.”
Additionally, Sifton notes the CIA may have had some close calls with detainees nearly dying during interrogations: the May 10, 2005, Bush Administration torture memo by Stephen Bradbury notes that doctors were nearby to perform a tracheotomy if during waterboarding the suspect is approaching death.
“Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue of psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness,” Bradbury wrote. “An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately, and the integrator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required….’”
The says CIA doctors were on hand with necessary equipment to perform a tracheotomy if necessary during waterboarding sessions: “[W]e are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present—although not visible to the detainee—during any application of the waterboard.”
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17 Responses to “US interrogators may have killed dozens, human rights researcher and rights group say”
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May 6th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
It’ll be interesting to hear how the right-wingers brush this one off, and how Obama & co. will explain not prosecuting these people, if this actually makes it on to the “real” news, that is.
snake plissken Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
The right wing nutjobs won’t brush all this off. In fact they’ll most likely embrace it with open arms. They’ll call it “Torturing for Freedom”, which probably is a mantra at FOX news. The current administration will play lip service to the end of torture by the US, but in the end it will be just that, all talk no play. The media will do their best to ignore the evidence and if it is covered the MSM will spin it to their liking, like FOX. All in all nothing will be done and the government will just sit back and wait until no one is talking about all of this anymore.
hologram5 Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Nothing is going to happen to these people unless charges are brought by the international court. Our “good ole boy” system will not bring these animals to justice. It is just a facade.
TheGhost Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Dear: Alex Jones
I am a research scientist in the field of hydrogen technology. A close friend of mine and a fellow scientist introduced me to your radio program. I have been listening to your program for the past year now. I have come to believe you are for the people of this wonderful country of ours, for that reason I would like to tell you my story. I am Blackfoot Sioux Indian from the Browning Res. in Montana. As a child I grew up in a house full of truck drivers my father, my mother, and both my brothers all drive truck. I watched my entire family work themselves to death in a semi. They worked hundreds of hours a week trying just to make ends meet paying for fuel in my father’s business.
In 1990 I was given the Cattell III (A+B) MENSA exam and scored in the top 1% of the populace. My parents were approached by the Department of Defense and my father thought it best if he signed me over to the Federal Government for further studies. I was seventeen at the time when my parents signed me over to be part of project named “Calypso” a government advanced study program at the US School of The America’s Ft. Benning, GA. I was placed with hundreds of other children from many different countries around the world. The testing that was preformed was mostly to find out how our minds functioned and if we could understand advanced technology just by looking at it. I had a special gift in Molecular Physics and could understand the most advanced complex structures used in molecular manipulation and fusion.
Many of us were weeded out of the group and put into smaller study groups and given tasks to perform. In Feb. 1991 I and four others were sworn in at the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I was placed in a study group at the Chemical/Bio-Weapons, Scientific Studies, and Research & Development Center there. During this time we were given hand drawn blue prints and documents dating from 1766 from English Physicist and Chemist Henry Cavendish along with blue prints and documents from Nikola Tesla, Don Dingle, Stan Myers, Paul Pantone, and many others. Our team was asked to review these documents and see if any of their theories that existed could be used to design a viable system for military use. Over the course of several years my team designed and retrofitted an on-demand hydrogen production system for use in many pieces of military equipment still in use today.
Later that year I was secretly speaking with Eugene Mallove about some of the systems that we were working on. He was very interested in the processes that our group was developing. At that time he told me about the suppression of technology that was going on. I got very concerned that maybe the technology that I was working on could be used against the ones that I love. I started an information campaign within the groups and was building a team to help get the information out to the public.
The first of my team to be killed was a brilliant engineer in KY 2002. While riding his Harley there another bike with two assailants drove by at high speed and hit him in the head with a club killing him instantly. It would be said that it was from a rival biker gang who mistakenly killed Jamie thinking he was someone else. Two months after this incident I was approached by a black car while running on base at Ft. Campbell, KY they followed me during my entire run and I kept looking back with the thought they were from CID.
On that day my wife and my young son would be picked up at our house in Clarksville, TN and taken to the airport on base and sent back to Malaysia. I filed several petitions trying to get them back and to find out where they were sent to. They had no records or information and no records of them being registered on or off base. The Government revoked my passport and has made me a prisoner in my own country making it impossible to travel. They also made it impossible for me to find work by eliminating all official documents of my being in the service or having a Doctorial Degree in Molecular Physics, outside of going back to them. They made my entire past and I being a real person disappear including SS, DL, and supporting documents of my past experiences. This spooked me as you can imagine and I laid low for awhile hoping to get them back.
I went AWOL in June 2003 after I had exhausted all avenues to get my family back. I was visited in Dec. 2003 in Wisconsin where I felt I was safely hidden from the DOD. I was wrong to think that they would not be able to find me because of my military training and background. They kindly asked me to return to duty or be faced with UCMJ charges. I was told if I played by their rules they would reinstate me and my family could come home. I followed their orders in hopes this would get my life and family back. I would teach Bio-Weapons Defense to DHS through the course of the next year at a MS training center. They still had not returned my family to me and I had spent several months serving their cause. While teaching there in March 2004 I learned of Eugene being murdered in his parent’s rental property. This triggered the thought that I would be next in line.
I finished the course that day with SR and got in my pickup truck and drove away from there not looking back. I got rid of all my credit cards and anything that could be traced back to me. I was trying to get back home to Montana. While I was laid over in a hotel in Sioux Falls, SD, I went next door to a bar that was across the street a band was playing. I drank some and watched the band till the end.
At 1:30am I walked out of the bar and a pickup truck with five guys pulled up next to me tossed a bag over my head throwing me into the bed of the truck. The entire time they hit me with clubs. I don’t know how long it lasted, but when they stopped they drug me out of the truck. I still had the bag over my head one of them shot me in the left side. I heard one of them say that f–ker has got to be dead. They got back into their truck and drove off.
I laid there praying they would not return. I think at that point I passed out for awhile. When I woke up I managed to get the bag off my head I crawled towards a light I could see in the distance. I had managed to crawl to a farm house and banged on the door. When he opened the door to see me laid out on his stoop, he helped me to my feet and he said I was the bloodiest thing he had ever seen in all his years. He wanted to call the police but I begged that he did not in fear they would come back and finish the job. I talked him into taking me to the hotel where I got cleaned up I was still bleeding pretty bad at the time. He told me not to worry and that he would help.
He called a vet friend of his who was another older fellow I could tell they had been friends for a very long time. He said I am not going to ask you any questions, but I need to get you fixed up. They patched me up enough to get me to his clinic where he removed the bullet from my side.
I was starting to wake up from the incident when I got to thinking to myself. How did they know where I was? I asked the man if he had an ultrasound machine and he affirmed that he had. I asked him to look at different places on my body where to my surprise he found two small glass cylinders one imbedded in the back of my skull just under the skin on the left side of my head and the other in between the radius and ulna in my right arm. To this day, I do not know how either one of them got there. He gladly removed them both and destroyed them on the spot. I told the men it would probably be best if they not speak about me or this night to anyone. I left the clinic and got in my truck and drove off. I did not go back home I was afraid that they would somehow find out I was still alive and hurt my family to find me.
I drove until I had no gas left in the truck I was out of money and out of time. The town I stopped in had a carnival playing I walked to the carnival and thought this would be the best place to hide out. I went to work for a show that was at the carnival. They did not ask me for any documents nor did they care if I had any. The owner of show would ask questions about my background all the time saying “I was much too smart to be working for a carnival.”
While at the Alameda County Fair in CA. I ran into a salesman who could not find a booth. I had a booth already and he asked if I would share the space with him. I told him I would. While he ran the booth I worked in my trailer on the designs for a hydrogen unit. I had never given up hope that this technology would get out to the people someday.
I was watching the booth and the salesmen started asking me questions about what I was working on. I decided to share with him the technology and a bit of my life story he was very interested. He said he wanted to help me find the right people to get it out to the public. I did not know at the time that he was Mormon and part of a large Mormon community he introduced me to several men I have grown to trust with my life. In the meantime I have been developing a hydrogen on-demand system for the public.
Alex I am here to tell you I have done it! With the help of some fine people I have finished my revolutionary hydrogen fuel and emissions system. This system can be used in both gas and diesel vehicles, but I have run into a snag. The federal government is back at it again. They have been spreading a fear campaign to stop this technology from getting out. I feel it is my duty to make sure this technology is not shelved or lost forever.
I am surrounded by people at all times from our group for safety reasons. What they have been doing is late night drive by’s and firing guns off near the property I am at. Twice now our group has been shot at while out fishing at a nearby lake. Recently they have been parking themselves next to the research center where we are doing the work at. They have also been taping our cell phones and videoing our comings and goings. They even went as far as going to our lead machinist home while he was at the shop, waking his wife up while she was sleeping, and flashing a badge that she could not read. They proceeded to search around the outside of their property. We suspected they may have tried to plant something they could use for a raid of the facility.
I am afraid that once again I have put my friends and family in the crossfire. This technology could make it possible for people to have their own power source for their cars, trucks, homes, and for this crisis that is quickly coming to a head. I cannot let that happen again.
I am asking you Alex to do a story about this technology. Cover it in one of your video interviews before it is too late and the technology is lost. I will put myself in harm’s way to do a live interview about this technology let you see for yourself the technology in action. People are going to be desperate for energy and this is their answer. This is not about making money hell I will cut you in on sales of the product which you could use to make more movies. I am not in this for the money I am in this to help save mankind and you can ask anyone who knows me if that is not 100% the truth. I would give up all of the money of this technology just to know I helped save a life, even if that life is not my own. I ask you Alex man to man patriot to patriot. You could turn this thing into a huge helping hand for the people. You have the power to make a change for all the people of this once bright country of ours. All you have to do is help bring them into the light of this clean renewable technology.
Please contact me.
TheGhost
P.S. I am sure this not going to sit well with the people in power. This is a last ditch effort on my part as I have sent this letter to your e-mail address several times. I have never received a reply. I hope and pray that by placing this information on your website that you will find it in your heart to reach out to find the truth. Thank You and God bless you for all your efforts.
liberatedpuppet Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Ghost, your barking up the wrong tree my friend, if your story is true and your not dead yet??? Go here now
http://www.aero2012.com/en/inventorsguide.html
Get a hold of Steven Greer, he has connections and offers protection
god be with you
beltempest Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
and they wonder why the world detests amerikanz, the world would be a better place without them!
reconmarine Reply:
May 8th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
The world detests Americans? Really? Maybe we should stop feeding them then……
Your either a stupid American slob who reads the hate America media papers that wants you to think the world hates America, which is not why they wear our clothes, watch our movies, listen to our music, drive our cars, idolize our athletes and famous etc etc etc or your French…..Either way, America is the greatest country in the world….
So EAT a DICK
May 6th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
I just wish they would have used those same tactics on 9/11 truthers?
Jeremy Reply:
May 6th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
didnt your momma teach you to be nice?
May 6th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
There is this centuries old adage in India (Bengal):
“One can not simply hide the fish in a curry of Spinage”
Beside truth has its own dynamics of revealing out.
May 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
whatever you call it, it’s illegal and against the conventions of civilized man
May 6th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
From my experience of interrogation, the minimum people required is two with the subject of questioning. The two interrogators – one main speaker and another to support or review the main speaker’s idea – will continue to ask the subject things. The main speaker would ask things the subject has done and their assumption of the subject’s intention or the hypothesis, and another speaker nods or agree about it. The subject listens their communication over and over. This is possibly used by the US agency as an alternative for letting the subject to listen the loud music for torture. As the result of the endless interrogation, the subject would break down. Not all the torture would leave visible scars. I am talking about the possibility of the brainwash technique.
May 6th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
It does sound a lil fishy. They went from waterboarding to murder.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
To everyone in the world: torture is done for pleasure, I’m not sure if anyone actually believes
that torture has any function except as entertainment.
Just what do any of us think the military is trained to do?
We all pay unconstitutional taxes to support our own oppression and torture, does anyone really believe otherwise?
good luck Mr. Ghost!
May 6th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
The international court is useless. They essentially found the US guilty of terrorism in the 80s when they had mined the waters around Nicaragua, and nothing happened. Sadly, Obama is no different from every president who came before him. America has killed way more people than Nazi Germany or Iraq ever did, and the only thing that will stop that is if Americans enact change from within.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Everyone forgets that when they caputure our people and behead them, NO OUTRAGE?
May 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
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