In the erratically refrigerated vault of Baghdad's overcrowded mortuary lies an unclaimed corpse: number E63. For the past four and a half months, the most famous victim of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, whose battered body was photographed wrapped in cellophane, has been waiting for someone to collect him. So far nobody has.
The precise circumstances of Manadel al-Jamadi's death in US custody are unknown. But leaked documents from an ongoing Pentagon investigation show Jamadi died during a CIA interrogation in the jail on November 4 last year, after being beaten up in the showers. CIA officers insisted on questioning him with a hood over his head. It was only when he slumped over dead that they took off the hood and found he had severe facial injuries.
Afterwards two US guards at the prison west of Baghdad, Charles Graner and Sabrina Harman, posed for photos with his body, grinning and doing a "thumbs up."
The Pentagon is now investigating Jamadi's death together with at least 27 other suspicious deaths in US custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
The Guardian has learned that US officials released Jamadi's body to the International Committee of the Red Cross only on Feb. 11 -- more than three months after his death. The Red Cross delivered his body to Baghdad's mortuary the same day.
The US military has not revealed details of Jamadi's arrest. But in an e-mail leaked by Sergeant Ivan "Chip" Frederick, one of seven guards at Abu Ghraib now facing charges, it appears that Jamadi was under the control of "other government agencies" when he died -- in other words, the CIA and its paramilitary employees.
Documents show that two CIA personnel and a contract translator were present when he died. It is not known who beat him in the face.
But internal US medical reports show he died from "blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not