- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S.
Army investigators have recommended that the service consider charges ranging
from manslaughter to conspiracy against 28 soldiers in the deaths of two
prisoners in Afghanistan in 2002, the Army said on Thursday.
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- The announcement followed charges filed earlier against
a U.S. military police sergeant in the alleged abuse deaths of the two
detainees at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.
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- It marked the latest step by the American military against
soldiers involved in the abuse of prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- The brief announcement said the Army Criminal Investigation
Division had "identified 28 soldiers with possible culpability in
these two cases, meaning that they may have committed one or more offenses
punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice."
-
- It did not name the troops but said a detailed report
had been passed to commanders listing potential offenses including involuntary
manslaughter, assault consummated by battery, maiming, maltreatment, dereliction
of duty and conspiracy.
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- "Many of the 28 soldiers may have lesser culpability,"
the Army said, adding that "Commanders, with the advice of their lawyers,
will consider the full range of appropriate administrative and disciplinary
measures from taking no action to recommending trial by court-martial."
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- DIED OF BLUNT FORCE INJURIES
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- The two prisoners died on Dec. 4 and Dec. 10, 2002, after
blunt force injuries, according to the Army. Military medical examiners
classified their deaths as homicides .
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- Sgt. James Boland, an Army reservist in the 377th Military
Police Company, was earlier charged with assault, maltreatment and dereliction
of duty in the deaths, the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson,
Georgia, said last month.
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- Army officials told Reuters then that perhaps several
dozen troops from Boland's Cincinnati-based unit, as well as the 519th
Military Intelligence Battalion based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, could
face charges.
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- Boland was ordered to Fort Knox, Kentucky, while his
case is pending.
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- Seven Army military police soldiers have been charged
in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of
Baghdad. Army investigators in August also recommended criminal charges
against dozens more military intelligence and military police soldiers
as well as private contractors.
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- The Afghan investigation focuses on cases of prisoner
abuse that took place there more than three months before the U.S. invasion
of Iraq and even longer before the physical abuse and sexual humiliation
of Iraqis and Abu Ghraib in the fall and winter of 2003.
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- The 519th Military Intelligence Battalion was posted
in 2002 at Bagram, the large base where U.S. forces held many prisoners
in Afghanistan. Some soldiers from the unit later were sent to Iraq and
served at Abu Ghraib, where they were linked to abuse of prisoners there.
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- Autopsies said a 30-year-old prisoner died of a blood
clot in the lung triggered by blunt-force injuries to the legs, and a 22-year-old
prisoner died because of blunt-force injuries to his lower extremities
that exacerbated existing coronary artery disease.
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- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6504786
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