KABUL, 6 February 2005 — A United Nations rights investigator examining the situation in Afghanistan said yesterday that foreign troops had mistreated and possibly tortured people in the war-torn country.
“There is a very unusual practice in Afghanistan, mainly foreign forces, who have taken upon themselves the right, without any legal process of arresting people, detaining them, mistreating them and possibly even torturing them,” said Cherif Bassiouni, the UN-appointed Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan.
A US-led offensive in late 2001 drove the Taleban from power after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.
Bassiouni, who leaves Monday after a week exploring the human rights’ situation in Afghanistan, said the information would be in his scheduled report to the next session of the UN’s Human Rights Commission in March. “There is not (a) legal basis for coalition forces to hold people as prisoners,” Bassiouni said.
“If they’re held as prisoners of war, then they have to observe the Geneva Convention. If they’re held as common prisoners, then they have to conform with Afghani law and constitution. They’re (foreign forces are) not doing it,” he said.
On a previous visit to Afghanistan in August 2004, the expert expressed concerns about the legality of detention centers run by the US military and called for them to be opened to independent inspectors.
The US Army acknowledged in December that eight prisoners have died in US military custody in Afghanistan since US-led forces toppled the Taleban regime, two more than were previously disclosed.
Three of the eight cases were the subject of inquiries, three were waiting for judicial procedures to start, one trial had ended, and the status of the eighth case was unknown at the time, the army said.
The US military has come under fire from rights groups for its methods at detention centers in Afghanistan.
