A former CIA contractor was found guilty on Thursday of assaulting an Afghan prisoner who later died in a case that raised new questions about the treatment of detainees by US interrogators.
David Passaro, a 40-year-old former Special Forces medic, was the first civilian to be charged with abusing a detainee in the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prosecutors said on Thursday that the verdict against Passaro sets a precedent for bringing others accused of such wrongdoing overseas back to the US to stand trial.
PHOTO: AP
Human-rights advocates, however, noted that no other US civilian has been charged publicly with abusing detainees in the two years since Passaro's arrest.
Prosecutors said Passaro beat the prisoner, Abdul Wali, so badly that he pleaded to be shot to end his pain. Wali died of his injuries two days after the interrogation in June 2003.
"Passaro's actions were unlawful, reprehensible and neither authorized nor condoned by the agency," CIA Director Michael Hayden said in Washington after a federal jury in Raleigh, North Carolina, convicted Passaro.
Passaro was found guilty on a felony charge of assault causing serious injury and three misdemeanor counts of simple assault. He faces a maximum of 10 years for the felony and six months on each of the three misdemeanors.
Passaro was tried under a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows charges against US citizens for crimes committed on land or facilities designated for use by the US government.
Should there be other US civilians accused of similar crimes, they can be tried in the same way, acting US Attorney George Holding said.
However, Duke University law professor Scott Silliman and others said the secretive nature of the CIA's work overseas makes it hard to tell whether similar cases will follow.
In Passaro's case, much of the court record was placed under seal for security reasons and several agents testified in disguise using fictitious names.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS