| Two afghan prisoners beaten to death Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/11129119.htmhttp://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/11129119.htm
Posted on Mon, Mar. 14, 2005 Reports cite routine abuse
Two Afghans eventually died of injuries
The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Two Afghan prisoners who died in U.S. custody in December 2002 in Afghanistan endured sustained assaults by American soldiers that caused their deaths, Army criminal investigative reports say.
The men were chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by U.S. soldiers, according to the reports, which have not yet been made public.
In a closed hearing last month in Texas, Pfc. Willie V. Brand was charged with manslaughter in connection with one of the deaths, another Army document showed. The attacks on the prisoner 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.
The reports, obtained by Human Rights Watch, provide the first official account of events that led to the deaths of the detainees, Mullah Habibullah and Dilawar, at the Bagram Control Point, about 40 miles north of Kabul. The deaths took place nearly a year before the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Among those implicated in the killings at Bagram were members of Company A of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, from Fort Bragg, N.C. The battalion went on to Iraq, where some members established the interrogation unit at Abu Ghraib and have been implicated in some abuses there.
The reports, from the Army Criminal Investigation Command, also make clear that the abuse at Bagram went far beyond the two killings.
U.S. military officials in Afghanistan initially said the deaths of the two prisoners were from natural causes.
However, after an investigation by The New York Times, the Army acknowledged that the deaths were homicides.
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