BAGHDAD, 22 May 2004 — The row over the conduct of US personnel in Iraq has intensified after an American news channel showed gruesome new photographs of military police officers posing with the battered body of a dead Iraqi prisoner.
ABC News broadcast the images of two officers already facing trial for prisoner abuse — Charles Graner and Sabrina Harman — smiling and giving the “thumbs up” over the bruised and blooded corpse of an Iraqi detainee.
The dead prisoner was Thursday named as Manadel Al-Jamadi. He allegedly died after being beaten by CIA or civilian interrogators last November in the showers of Abu Ghraib prison.
According to testimony by a guard at the prison, Specialist Jason Kenner, US Navy Seals brought Jamadi to the prison “in good health”. When CIA officers began interrogating him later with a bag over his head, however, he slumped over dead during questioning. They then removed the bag, revealing that he had severe facial injuries.
A photo of Jamadi’s body wrapped in cellophane and lying on a black body bag was first circulated more than two weeks ago together with the now notorious images of US guards at Abu Ghraib, including photos of them posing with naked detainees stacked in a human pyramid. But there was growing confusion Thursday night as to what had happened to Jamadi’s body. In evidence given at a closed hearing last week, Kenner said he had seen the body packed in ice while a “battle” raged between CIA and military interrogators over who should dispose of it.
On Thursday the head of forensics at Baghdad’s morgue, Faik Amin Baker, said Jamadi’s corpse had not arrived in his department — the usual place for dead Iraqis.
“We have received 26 bodies from the Red Cross and he wasn’t one of them,” he told the Guardian. “I’ve checked our records.”
Dr. Baker said the gauze on Jamadi’s right check suggested he had been assaulted and treated before receiving the injuries that led to his death. “We don’t know how he died. It’s impossible to tell from the photo because of the cellophane. He could have been shot. Everything is possible.”
Last week medical staff at Abu Ghraib said bodies of detainees were usually transferred to the US base at Baghdad military airport. They were unaware of what happened after that.
A spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross could shed no light on Jamadi’s fate. “We do transport the bodies of dead detainees but we receive no details on them. We are merely the taxi service,” she said. The US Department of Justice is understood to have opened an investigation into the death — and into four other deaths in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan — after a referral from the CIA.
Staff Sergeant Ivan “Chip” Frederick allegedly took the latest pictures. He is one of six reservists, together with Graner and Harman from the 372nd military police company, who are facing charges of abuse.
In an e-mail leaked by his defense, Frederick said Jamadi had been under the control of “OGA”, or other government agencies, in other words the CIA and its paramilitary employees. “They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away,” it said. “They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately 24 hours in the shower. The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away.”