Human Rights Group Puts Rumsfeld on Spot Over Afghan Deaths

An international rights group said it knows of more prisoners dying in U.S. military custody in Afghanistan, and Washington's failure to hold anyone accountable had created a culture of impunity. "It's time for the United States to come clean about crimes committed by U.S. forces in Afghanistan," Brad Adams, Asia Division director for Human Rights Watch, said on Monday. In an open letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Human Rights Watch revealed two new cases of deaths in custody and demanded an investigation into a third that took place three months ago. The two new cases uncovered involved the alleged killing of an Afghan army soldier mistakenly arrested with seven others in March last year, and the alleged murder of another detainee in 2002, HRW said. The soldier, Jamal Naseer, died on the U.S. base at Gardez, south east of Kabul in March, 2003. The army opened an investigation into the case in May, 2004, the rights group said. Men detained with Naseer allege that U.S. forces punched them, kicked them, hung them upside down, and hit them with sticks or cables, among other abuses. Some said they were soaked in cold water and forced to lie in snow, and given electric shocks to their toes, HRW said in its letter. The rights group also said there was another previously unpublicized alleged murder of an Afghan detainee by four U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in or before September 2002. . [more]
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