America admits suspects died in
interrogations
By Andrew Gumbel in Los
Angeles
07 March 2003
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.
Some American politicians have
argued that torture could be justified in this case if it helped prevent terror
attacks on US citizens. Jonathan Turley, a prominent law professor at George
Washington University, countered that embracing torture would be "suicide for a
nation once viewed as the very embodiment of human
rights".
Torture is part of a long list
of concerns about the Bush administration's respect for international law, after
the extrajudicial killing of al-Qa'ida suspects by an unmanned drone in Yemen
and the the indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
a number of whom have committed or attempted to commit
suicide.
President Bush appeared to
encourage extra-judicial solutions in his State of the Union address in January
when he talked of al-Qa'ida members being arrested or meeting "a different
fate". "Let's put it this way," he said in a tone that appalled many, "they are
no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies."