The US Army's abuse of detainees in Iraq went beyond Abu Ghraib prison and included brutal beatings of suspects as well as forcing them to do physical exercises until exhaustion, according to military documents made public here.
The more than 1,200 pages of documents were released late Friday in response to a court order that instructed the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups.
They include evidence that forced physical exertions may have caused the death of at least one detainee held by the US Army in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, as well as reports of brutal beatings and sworn statements that soldiers were told to "beat the f... out of" prisoners.
"These documents provide further evidence that the torture of detainees was much more widespread than the government has acknowledged," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "At a minimum, the documents indicate a colossal failure of leadership."
Before being brought to a detention center in Mosul in late 2003, Abu Malik Kenami had no known medical problems.
But an internal Army investigative document suggests he may have suffered a heart attack after his guards forced him to do rapid situps with "his hands flex cuffed behind his back."
According to the paper, Kenami was forced to do "ups and downs several times" with "a sandbag placed over" his head.
"Ups and downs," the document explains, are "a correctional technique of having a detainee stand up and then sit down rapidly, always keeping them in constant motion."
The file indicates that after his death Kenamis body was thrown into a refrigerator van and kept there for five days without any autopsy. After that it was quietly turned over to a local Iraqi mortician for burial.
Many of the documents focus on the 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, whose task was to collect information on Islamist insurgents and hiding associates of the deposed regime of President Saddam Hussein.
Military investigators reported to their superiors that "abuse of detainees in some form or other was an acceptable practice and was demonstrated to the inexperienced infantry guards almost as guidance," the papers show.
In a bid to extract information, guards and interrogators "were striking the detainees," the investigators went on to say, while other intelligence personnel and translators "engaged in physical torture."
However, no punitive action was recommended against the battalion commander.
The victims includes a high-school boy, whose jaw was broken in detention as a result of which his mouth was wired shut and he could eat only through a straw.
The victim was told to say that he had fallen down and no one beat him, according to the documents.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
RSS