KABUL, 3 November 2005 — New claims of abuses by US soldiers in Afghanistan are more evidence of rights violations in the “war on terror”, with a pattern of impunity for such infractions, Amnesty International said.
As an example no soldier had been directly charged with causing the death of two Afghan detainees three years ago even though one man’s legs were so damaged they would have needed amputation had he survived, the rights group said in a statement seen yesterday.
The latest allegations against US soldiers in Afghanistan surfaced in an Australian television report last month that said troops had burned the bodies of Taleban fighters and used the incident to taunt others.
The incident, being investigated by the US military, would violate Islamic precepts that the bodies of Muslims be washed and buried, and international laws such as the Geneva Convention.
This “is only the latest in a series of cases of abuse by US troops in Afghanistan since 2001,” Amnesty said in a statement. Most of the other cases involve the abuse of detainees, at least eight of whom are reported to have died.
A “pattern of impunity and military leniency as well as delays and cover-ups in the investigation of deaths in US custody and abuses in Afghanistan and Iraq” was reflected in recent trials of soldiers involved in the 2002 abuse of detainees, Amnesty said.
An army investigation found the two detainees, who died at the Bagram base near Kabul, were “chained to a ceiling and kicked and beaten during sustained assaults by numerous military personnel,” it said.
A medical examiner said the legs of one man were so badly damaged they would have had to be amputated if he had lived.
Seven low-ranking soldiers were convicted variously of assault, maltreatment, dereliction of duty and making false statements. They received sentences ranging from five months’ imprisonment to a reprimand, pay cuts and reduction in rank. Five other soldiers were on trial on similar charges.
“Despite the horrific, calculated nature of the assaults, no one to date has been charged directly with causing either of the two deaths,” Amnesty said.
It was also “astonishing” that the charges did not go further up the chain of command, it said.
Amnesty said it was also concerned that “hundreds of detainees remained in US custody in Afghanistan without charge or trial or access to families or lawyers.”
“The organization is further concerned that the CIA may still be holding people in secret detention in Afghanistan and elsewhere in situations which would amount to ‘disappearance’,” it said.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Central Intelligence Agency was holding top Al-Qaeda suspects in secret detention centers set up in eight countries including Afghanistan and Thailand after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The United States launched its “war on terror” by invading Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the fundamentalist Taleban government after it failed to hand over Osama Bin Laden for the attacks on New York and Washington.
