Los Angeles Times
September 21, 2004
GARDEZ, Afghanistan — American military investigators have opened a criminal probe
into allegations of murder and torture involving an 18-year-old Afghan army recruit who
died while in U.S. custody last year. The new inquiry, which will also focus on the
alleged torture of seven other Afghan soldiers, was confirmed Monday by the U.S. Army
Criminal Investigation Command.
The previously undisclosed death occurred in
March 2003 after the eight soldiers were arrested at a remote firebase operated here by
the U.S. Army Special Forces, according to witnesses and an Afghan military
investigation.
Motivation for those arrests remains cloaked in Afghan
political intrigue. The action was requested by a provincial governor feuding with
local military commanders, an Afghan intelligence report says.
In the end, none
of the eight men was charged with a crime or linked to anti-government conduct.
The dead soldier, identified as Jamal Naseer, a member of the Afghan Army III
Corps, was severely beaten over a span of at least two weeks, according to a report
prepared for the Afghan attorney general. A witness described his battered corpse as
being "green and black" with bruises.
Alleged American mistreatment of the
detainees included repeated beatings, immersion in cold water, electric shocks, being
hung upside down and toenails being torn off, according to Afghan investigators and an
internal memorandum prepared by a United Nations delegation that interviewed the
surviving soldiers.
Some of the Afghan soldiers were beaten to the point that
they could not walk or sit, Afghan doctors and other witnesses said.
Afghan
military prosecutors looking into the incident privately recommended more than a year
ago that the Afghan attorney general's office pursue a murder case against unnamed
American soldiers at the Gardez firebase. No action on the recommendation was taken,
but the prosecutors say the case is still open.
The prosecutors' confidential
117-page investigat ive report recently was reviewed by a Washington-based nonprofit
educational organization, the Crimes of War Project, and the information was provided to
The Times. The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command, or CID, stymied in an earlier
attempt to investigate the incident, launched its probe over the weekend in response to
questions by The Times about the Afghan report.
The eight-man Afghan army unit
was taken prisoner as part of a campaign by U.S. forces and the local governor to bring
Paktia province in southeastern Afghanistan under the control of the central government,
Afghan and U.N. officials said. American forces suspected that some Afghan commanders
were selling weapons to anti-government forces, they said.
After Naseer's death,
the seven other troops were transferred to Afghan police custody and released without
charges. None was linked to Al Qaeda or the forces of the ousted Taliban
regime.
Former Atty. Gen. for the Armed Forces Yar Mohammed Tamkin, who
directed the Afgh an investigation, concluded in the report that there was a "strong
possibility" that Jamal Naseer was "murdered as the result of torture" at the hands of
his American captors.
He added that under Afghan law, "it is necessary for our
legal system to investigate the torture of the seven individuals and the murder of
Jamal, son of Ghazi, and other similar acts committed by foreign nationals."
One
witness account provided to Tamkin's investigators came from Naseer's brother, an Afghan
army commander also among those detained at Gardez. He told investigators in a
statement that soon after Naseer died, two "high-ranking" U.S. soldiers squabbled near
the body.
One American, he said, grabbed the other by the collar, scolded him
for torturing the youth and said he "should have been shot with a bullet," according to
the report.
None of the suspected Americans was identified in the Afghan
military's investigation.
The 20th Special Forces Group was in charge of the
Special Forces mission throughout Afghanistan at the time of the Gardez incident. It is
a National Guard group based in Birmingham, Ala., that also draws soldiers from units in
Florida and Mississippi. Officials said it was customarily assigned to Latin American
operations.
The 20th group was replaced countrywide on March 15, 2003, by the
3rd Special Forces Group from Ft. Bragg, N.C., U.S. officials said.
'The
Gardez 7'
In Washington, Pentagon officials said they could find no reports
passed up the chain of command as required when a death occurs in U.S. custody, raising
questions about possible efforts by American troops in Afghanistan to cover up the
incident.
Earlier this year, the CID received a tip about the incident from an
Afghan prison official but said it was unable to investigate the matter because of a
lack of information.
The case of the "Gardez 7," as CID officials dubbed it, was
filed away as unfounded because investigators had no records, victims' names or wit
nesses, said Christopher E. Coffey, an Army detective based at Bagram air base in
Afghanistan.
Access to the Afghan military report on the death of Naseer was
obtained during an independent investigation of prisoner abuse allegations by the Crimes
of War Project.
The group was established in 1999 to provide information that
could "lead to greater pressure to prevent [war crimes] and to punish those who
commit them." It is described on its website as "a collaboration of journalists,
lawyers and scholars dedicated to raising public awareness of the laws of war."
Coffey said that with the new information, the CID would pursue charges of murder and of
abuse of a person in U.S. custody.
"We're trying to figure out who was running
the base," Coffey said. "We don't know what unit was there. There are no records. The
reporting system is broke across the board. Units are transferred in and out. There
are no SOPs [standard operating procedures] … and each unit acts
differently."
Remote bases such as Gardez are usually operated by Special Forces
and intelligence agencies and report to special operations commanders. Even
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross are not allowed to visit
such bases.
"Gardez is the worst facility — it is three or four times as
bad as any other base in Afghanistan," said Coffey, whose CID group has been assigned to
Afghanistan since April 2003.
Disclosures this year of U.S. military abuse of
detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison damaged America's image around the world,
prompting a series of high-level military reviews by the Pentagon.
A report last
month by former Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger found that prisoner abuse by
interrogators in Iraq could be traced, in part, to the use of unauthorized techniques
that had previously been applied in Afghanistan.
In July, an investigation of
detainee operations in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Army's inspector general, Lt. G en.
Paul T. Mikolashek, disclosed 94 cases of alleged abuse, including 39 deaths in U.S.
custody — 20 of them suspected homicides. The report said the inspector general
had found "no incidents of abuse that had not been reported through command
channels."
No Documentation
But Naseer's death was not among
those counted. The absence of documentation appears to undermine findings that all
abuse incidents were properly reported through the chain of command.
Witness
accounts provided to Afghan military investigators suggest the possibility that U.S.
military officials at Gardez tried to distance themselves from the incident almost
immediately after the death. All seven survivors and Naseer's bruised corpse were
turned over to local police later the same day, after American officers sought
assistance from the governor and local security officials, according to the Afghan
military report and interviews.
The Afghan soldiers were transferred to police
custody on the gover nor's orders — with no arrest warrants, no criminal charges
filed and no documentation of Naseer's death, Police Chief Abdullah Mujahid acknowledged
in a letter to the provincial governor.
The letter was included among evidence
in the Afghan military investigation.
At the time, the Gardez police chief told
officials of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, that he was
keeping the prisoners in custody only at the request of U.S.-led coalition
forces.
An American Special Forces commander also had threatened to kill the
chief if he released any coalition prisoners, said a UNAMA official who witnessed the
warning.
Gardez police held the men for a month and a half with as many as 13
other inmates in a "secret detention room" built for five prisoners, according to the
attorney general's report. While in police custody, the prisoners were treated by local
doctors. They told UNAMA that they had received no medical attention during their
17-day detentio n at the Special Forces base.
At the jail, the men were still
wearing the soiled clothes they had on when they were taken into custody, Afghan doctors
and other independent witnesses said, and their wounds were not bandaged or treated.
Eventually, the men were transferred to a prison near Kabul, but only after their
injuries "showed signs of improvement," the military report said.
Their arrival
at the Kabul prison without arrest warrants or criminal charges prompted the Afghan
government investigation.
The following account is based on evidence and
information developed in that investigation, as well as the inquiries conducted by UNAMA
and the Crimes of War Project. It was culled primarily from documents and testimony in
the Afghan report, the UNAMA internal memorandum and interviews with witnesses and
sources familiar with people and events surrounding the death of Naseer.
Local Intrigue
On the morning of March 1, 2003, a group of eight Afghan
soldiers manned a frozen military checkpoint at the Sato Kandaw Pass in southeastern
Afghanistan's Paktia province, a strategic outpost on the trade route to Pakistan. It
was also a crossroads for political rivalries.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad, then the special presidential envoy to Afghanistan, had months earlier
declared Paktia one of the three most troubled regions in the country in terms of
warlord violence. Local intelligence agents also reported suspicions that some military
units allied with interim President Hamid Karzai's central government were selling arms
to Taliban elements.
Provincial Gov. Raz Mohammed Dalili, a Karzai ally, was
being challenged for regional power by tribal warlord Bacha Khan. Local military and
police commanders loyal to the central government also opposed Khan but feuded as well
with the governor and among themselves.
One way feuding Afghan factions settle
old scores or seek fresh advantage is by reporting their enemies to the Americans as Al
Qaeda or Taliban me mbers, an Afghan legal expert said.
"It doesn't matter if
you're a criminal or not," said Lal Gul, chairman of the Afghan Commission for Human
Rights. "People can say what they want against you. The Special Forces, if they want
to arrest you, will just take you away…. They can't distinguish between real and
false suspects."
One of the governor's projects at the time was to clear the
roads of illegal checkpoints run by provincial army commanders.
Dalili said in
a recent interview that the Karzai government and the U.S. Embassy had asked him to
work closely with American Special Forces in the region. In Kabul, Dalili was
considered too weak to take on local commanders alone. The governor said he asked
"Mike" — the nom de guerre of the Special Forces commander at Gardez — to
move against the Sato Kandaw checkpoint.
UNAMA officials in Gardez said they
knew a succession of Special Forces commanders as "Mike." The "Mike" in charge during
March 2003 was so aggressiv e in his avowed mission to rid the country of "bad guys"
that a fellow soldier called him "Crazy Mike," a UNAMA official said.
At a March
10 meeting of local security officials sponsored by UNAMA, Mike reportedly warned local
commanders that he would kill any one of them if they released his Taliban prisoners or
sided with anti-coalition forces. One official in attendance said he stood up and
interrupted.
" 'Mike, sit down. This is the United Nations. We don't talk
about shooting or killing people here…. If you want to tell him you'll kill him,
commence your own meeting and tell him there.' "
Today, Dalili continues to
speak proudly about his association with American Special Forces and is effusive in his
praise of Mike.
"My only purpose was to bring peace and security," he said in
the interview.
Afghan military intelligence in Paktia took a dimmer view. They
concluded in a report that the governor ordered the arrests of the men at the Sato
Kandaw checkpoint to de fame the Afghan Army III Corps commanders with whom he was
feuding.
The arrested soldiers also blamed warlord Khan, who coveted control of
Sato Kandaw Pass, for providing false intelligence about the soldiers to the American
Special Forces.
Tea and Shackles
Most of the eight Afghan
soldiers on duty at the pass were in a basement shelter when the U.S. Special Forces
unit and its interpreters drove up to the checkpoint about 11 a.m. The "foreign
friends" asked to join them for tea and they were invited inside, the men recalled.
The Afghans were led by Naseer Ahmad, known as Commander Pare, a 25-year-old
soldier with a vivid scar from the corner of one eye to the lobe of an ear. A thick
shock of black hair burst from under his pakol hat. The youngest Afghan soldier
was Pare's brother, the slightly built, bearded 18-year-old Jamal Naseer, a new recruit
looking for his first permanent job. The security checkpoint was heavily armed,
according to the Afghan report.
< br> Just as sugar was being put in the cups, the
Americans "pointed their weapons at us and told us, 'Don't move!' " one of the Afghans
told prosecutors.
According to accounts from the arrested men, they were
disarmed, handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded. Some said they were struck by rifle
butts.
"We were taken like animals" to the Gardez firebase, Momin, one of those
arrested, told prosecutors. "The behavior of the authorities was completely
wild."
17 Days in March
The men said they were interrogated
individually. They were asked about Al Qaeda. They were grilled about stealing wood
from trucks grinding north over the pass toward Kabul.
The Afghans said they
were pummeled, kicked, karate-chopped, hung upside down and struck repeatedly with
sticks, rubber hoses and plastic-covered cables. Some said they were immersed in cold
water, then made to lie in the snow. Some said they were kept blindfolded for long
periods and subjected to electric shocks to their toes .
One of the men, Abdul
Rahim, said the beatings stopped only after he convinced the Americans that he was
simply the unit's cook.
"They beat us a lot. They tore off our nails…. I
was beaten very hard by punches and kicks," Momin, who, like many Afghans, goes by one
name, told investigators. "I was seriously injured from the beatings."
In his
statement to prosecutors, Noor Mohammed said: "They put us in the water and on the snow
and beat us up…. They were throwing us against the wall."
Afghan
authorities found substantial corroboration for such claims from witnesses describing
the soldiers' physical condition after 17 days in U.S. custody.
Gardez Police
Chief Mujahid told military prosecutors that when the men arrived at his jail from the
American compound, many had injuries that appeared to be the result of severe impacts.
A doctor was called to treat the prisoners.
Dr. Aziz Ulrahman, who worked at
the Gardez Hospital, examined Commander Pare that nig ht at the police station. He told
the Crimes of War Project that the man's feet were swollen and black and blue, injuries
"caused by blunt-force trauma."
The UNAMA delegation interviewed the men at the
Gardez jail and described similar injuries in a confidential memo dated March 26, 2003.
It reported that two of the men were visibly wounded and one was unable to walk as a
result of what he said were beatings to his knees and legs. The men unanimously blamed
U.S. soldiers for their injuries, the U.N. team said.
The delegation
recommended an investigation into possible human rights violations, torture and other
cruel and inhumane treatment by Special Forces personnel.
In an interview, UNAMA
officials said they did not know the status of that recommendation.
A Cold,
Quiet End
Witnesses remembered it was a bitterly cold day when American
soldiers half-carried Commander Pare's younger brother to the warmth of the cook's room
at the U.S. firebase. A wood stove held of f the late winter chill outside.
But Jamal Naseer was not comforted. He complained to the witnesses of pains in his
abdomen. He was so badly bruised he could not walk unaided. After a short time he
asked for help getting outside to urinate.
Two Afghans working in the cook's
room lifted the 18-year-old under each arm and eased him out the door. In an interview,
one of the men who asked not to be named recalled that the young man started to loosen
his trousers, then went limp and collapsed to the ground.
The men knelt beside
him. They saw his eyes roll upward in a frozen stare. The young soldier died in their
arms. It was about midday, the witness said.
Hours later, Commander Pare was
brought to his brother's side in a long tent in the prisoner compound, he told a
reporter. Apparent efforts by the camp's medical personnel to resuscitate Naseer had
failed.
"After I entered the room, I observed that a plastic tube was in my
brother's mouth and an injection into his arm," he told investigators. "Meanwhile,
three senior [U.S. soldiers] entered and asked the translator who had done the
beating…. At this moment, [one soldier] grabbed [another soldier]
by the collar and said that he should not have been tortured and should have been shot
with a bullet."
Pare said the American officers left, then one returned and
offered personal condolences. He said the American told him there had been a
misunderstanding.
"They told me that they respected my religion and they asked
for forgiveness in mistreating us," Pare told Afghan investigators. "Afterward, they
asked what they could do to help me."
The commander said he refused their
offer of money for burial expenses. He said he would burn anything given to him by the
Americans rather than "spoil the martyrdom of my brother."
Later, the Afghan who
had witnessed Naseer's death came to visit Pare. They both wept over the body. The
witness later told a reporter he was deeply saddened b y the death. "Whether he was
innocent or guilty, he was still a Muslim."
The man helped Pare turn the youth's
body to face Mecca. Pare sat beside his brother's remains until 10 p.m., until a police
vehicle arrived to transport it to the hospital.