- 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 ñ reviving
concerns that the US is resorting to torture in its treatment of Taliban
fighters and suspected al-Qa'ida operatives.
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- 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.
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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".
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=384604
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