Grand Hotel Afghano
Two Afghan prisoners who died in American custody in Afghanistan in December 2002 were chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by American soldiers in sustained assaults that caused their deaths, according to Army criminal investigative reports that have not yet been made public.
One soldier, Pfc. Willie V. Brand, was charged with manslaughter in a closed hearing last month in Texas in connection with one of the deaths, another Army document shows. Private Brand, who acknowledged striking a detainee named Dilawar 37 times, was accused of having maimed and killed him over a five-day period by “destroying his leg muscle tissue with repeated unlawful knee strikes.”
The attacks on Mr. Dilawar were so severe that “even if he had survived, both legs would have had to be amputated,” the Army report said, citing a medical examiner.
Il resto dell’articolo qui e il rapporto di Human Rights Watch qui. Stralcio per i fan(atici) di Grand Hotel Guantanamo:
More than three years after the first detainees were brought to Guantánamo, the U.S. government continues to detain nearly 550 people indefinitely without charge or trial or without applying the Geneva Conventions. There is growing evidence that detainees at Guantánamo have suffered torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Accounts by U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who witnessed detainee abuse including chained detainees forced to sit in their own excrement have recently emerged, adding to the statements of former detainees describing the use of painful stress positions, prolonged solitary confinement, use of military dogs to threaten detainees, threats of torture and death, and prolonged exposure to extremes of heat, cold and noise. Videotapes of riot squads subduing suspects reportedly show the guards punching some detainees, tying one to a gurney for questioning and forcing a dozen to strip from the waist down. The International Committee of the Red Cross reportedly told the U.S. government in a confidential report that some abuses of detainees were tantamount to torture.
(Grazie Massimo)
