Published Saturday, October 30th, 2004
Americas - 21:10 GMT
Lisa Ashkenaz Croke
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The document further notes that none of the fourteen FBI personnel interviewed was aware of the activities at Unit 1A or 1B of the prison, where the military acknowledges detainees were harmed, and of which photographs leaked to the media have appeared.
The memorandum, entitled Inquiry Regarding Activities of FBI Personnel at Abu Ghurayb Prison, is just one of numerous documents the American Civil Liberties Union received this month after filing Freedom of Information Act requests with various government agencies for documents related to the United States’ use of torture. The FBI’s report, like many of the released documents, is heavily redacted; the names of FBI employees questioned during the inquiry, military personnel, detainees, and even the memorandum’s authors have been blanked out by censors.
Examples of questionable treatment agents witnessed while working at Abu Ghraib include numerous acts now known to have been relatively commonplace. For instance, a special agent witnessed the subjection of a detainee to sleep deprivation and “handcuffed to a waste-high railing,” his head covered with a “green nylon sandbag” and “draped in a shower curtain.”
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In one instance, an agent watched “military personnel restraining a detainee who was ‘spread eagle’ on a mattress on the floor yelling and flailing.” The document does not clarify how many people comprise “military personnel” in these cases, nor are they identified as guards, interrogators, interpreters, clerks, or by nationality. In this case, the “military personnel” assured the FBI special agent that the prisoner suffered from mental illness; the report notes the agent’s own observation of the incident as “consistent with the military personnel attempting to assist a mentally ill person.” The memorandum does not explain how the special agent drew such a conclusion.
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The actual legality of such techniques is difficult to determine, in no small part due to the Bush administration’s hostility toward international law as it pertains to prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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“Examples of the reported abuse included being kicked in the stomach, electric shock, threats to harm family members, and one burn victim,” reads the report, which further notes that FBI employees’ interviews with detainees last year “determined those acts of abuse occurred during arrests by military personnel further described as ‘non-American.’”
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http://www.world-crisis.com/news/1008_0_1_0_M/
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