Charge Terror Suspect or Free Him, Says Court

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Finally. He's been there 2 and a half years. I just can't believe the American people have signed off on this practice. As if it could never or would never be applied to themselves.

Judge: Charge or Release Padilla
The Associated Press

Tuesday 01 March 2005

Washington - A federal judge ordered the Bush administration to either charge terrorism suspect Jose Padilla with a crime or release him after more than 21/2 years in custody.

U.S. District Judge Henry Floyd in Spartanburg, S.C., said the government cannot hold Padilla indefinitely as an "enemy combatant," a designation President Bush gave him in 2002. The government contends Padilla was planning an attack with a "dirty bomb" radiological device.

"The court finds that the president has no power, neither express nor implied, neither constitutional nor statutory, to hold petitioner as an enemy combatant," Floyd wrote Monday in a 23-page opinion. Floyd, appointed by Bush in 2003, gave the administration 45 days to take action.

more...

But this story is better

Rumsfeld Sued over Prisoner Abuse
CBS News

Tuesday 01 March 2005

A number of other lawsuits also are pending against Rumsfeld, military commanders and civilian contractors in the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal.

Two human rights groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on behalf of eight men allegedly tortured by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility" because he "personally signed off" on policies guiding prisoner treatment, said American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero.

A number of other lawsuits also are pending against Rumsfeld, military commanders and civilian contractors in the abuse scandal, which broke last spring with the disclosure of photographs showing American military men and women abusing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

An independent commission agreed in August 2004 that Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon leaders contributed to an environment in which prisoners suffered sadistic abuse at Abu Ghraib. The members also concluded that the officials could be faulted for failed leadership and oversight.

On Monday the U.S. military appointed a three-star general to lead an investigation into abuse allegations at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

At a Washington news conference, the ACLU and Human Rights First said the suit was filed in Rumsfeld's home state of Illinois and alleged the eight men suffered physical and psychological injuries while incarcerated in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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To follow up

American Jails in Iraq Are Bursting with Detainees
By Edward Wong
The New York Times

Friday 04 March 2005

Abu Ghraib - The American military's major detention centers in Iraq have swelled to capacity and are holding more people than ever, senior military officials say.

The growing detainee population reflects recent changes in how the military has been waging the war and in its policies toward detainees, the officials say.

The military swept up many Iraqis before the Jan. 30 elections in an attempt to curb violence and halted all releases before the vote. Other detainees have been captured in ambitious recent offensives across the Sunni Triangle, from Samarra to Falluja to the Euphrates River valley south of Baghdad.

The Abu Ghraib abuse scandal also forced changes in the system, with the military working quickly last summer to try and weed out detainees who obviously did not belong in prison. Many of the ones remaining are more likely to be denied release by review boards, military officials say.

As of this week, the military is holding at least 8,900 detainees in the three major prisons, 1,000 more than in late January. Here in Abu Ghraib, where eight American soldiers were charged last year with abusing detainees, 3,160 people are being kept, well above the 2,500 level considered ideal, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the detainee system. The largest center, Camp Bucca in the south, has at least 5,640 detainees.

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[outgirl]

I'm completely disgusted by these abuses of power.

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And the thought of any of OUR soldiers being sent to prison for refusing to follow "orders" and being themselves being subjected to any type of torture...it just drives me out of my damn mind! Right out of my mind, friggin insane and wrong and NOT MY NATION!!

But if the prison is a military prison, and the guards are military guards...what will the prison environment be like? What is acceptable treatment now?? It bothers me. It's horror. It's terrorism

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"chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by American soldiers in sustained assaults that caused their deaths"

And it's not as if our soldiers don't have clear and present danger of being abused in a prison. This is...another old story we haven't heard of until now.

Army Details Scale of Abuse of Prisoners in an Afghan Jail
By Douglas Jehl
The New York Times

Saturday 12 March 2005

Washington - 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.

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 Mr. 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.

We have to stop this. We have to help our soldiers stop this.

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I thought they just said 26. 108? A little more. Just a few more. I'm still wondering just how many of these stories it's going to take. Probably until we don't hear them anymore.

Oh, pardon me, I just realized they were only discussing the 26 criminal homicide cases.

More Than 100 Die in U.S. Custody in Iraq
The Associated Press

Wednesday 16 March 2005

Washington - At least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and roughly a quarter of the cases have been investigated as possible U.S. abuse, according to government data provided to The Associated Press.

The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, Central Intelligence Agency and Justice Department. Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars, most later freed.

The Pentagon has never provided comprehensive information on how many prisoners taken during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have died. The 108 figure, based on information supplied by Army, Navy and other government officials, includes deaths attributed to natural causes.

To human rights groups, the deaths form a clear pattern.

"Despite the military's own reports of deaths and abuses of detainees in U.S. custody, it is astonishing that our government can still pretend that what is happening is the work of a few rogue soldiers," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "No one at the highest levels of our government has yet been held accountable for the torture and abuse, and that is unacceptable."