USA: Rights groups says Abu Ghraib photos exemplify widespread detainee abuse for which only low-ranking troops are blamed

Record ID: 334771

  • Title: USA: Rights groups says Abu Ghraib photos exemplify widespread detainee abuse for which only low-ranking troops are blamed
  • Date: 27th April 2006
  • Summary: (W1) GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL STATION, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) U.S. SOLDIERS GUARDING FROM WATCHTOWER HANDCUFFED PRISONER BEING ESCORTED BY SOLDIERS
  • Embargoed: 12th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA41S8L01RM85N04A1JRV36Y10S
  • Story Text: The publication of a handful of photos from Abu Ghraib prison two years ago were a drop in a sea of detainee abuse and torture cases across U.S.-led prisons and only few low ranking soldiers have been held accountable, human rights organisations reported at a news conference on Tuesday (April 26).
    "This data should silence once and for all the assertion that the prisoner abuse problem is some isolated phenomenon limited to a few sadistic soldiers on the night shift at Abu Ghraib," said Elisa Massimino, the Washington Director of 'Human Rights First'. "Two years after those photographs became public we now know that the conduct depicted in them was wide spread, spanning two theaters of war and involving hundreds of military and civilian personnel".
    In a joint project on detainee abuse and accountability, human rights organisations found that abuse and torture of detainees held in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo Bay has been widespread and that the United States has taken only limited steps to investigate and punish implicated personnel.
    The Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project (DAA) was initiated in March 2005 as a joint research effort to collect and analyse credible allegations based on interviews with former detainees and documents, including government documentation.
    The data compiled by New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First shows over a thousand separate criminal acts against detainees, Massimino said at a news conference in Washington D.C.
    The findings, according to Massimino, "reveal(s) a picture of military discipline from which the doctrine of command responsibility is completely absent".
    The project has collected hundreds of allegations of detainee abuse and torture occurring since late 2001 - allegations implicating more than 600 U.S. military and civilian personnel and involving more than 460 detainees.
    The project found that many abuses were never investigated, and investigations that did occur often closed prematurely, or stalled without resolution.
    In cases where abuses were substantiated and perpetrators identified by military investigators, military commanders often chose to use weak non-judicial disciplinary measures as punishment, instead of pursuing criminal courts-martial. Of the courts-martial that did take place, the majority resulted in either prison sentences of less than a year, or punishments that did not involve jail time (such as discharge or rank-reduction).
    The project found that the vast majority of those who were investigated for abuse were enlisted military personnel, not officers. Only three officers have been convicted by court-martial for detainee abuse.
    Under military law, officers can be held accountable for the abuses of their subordinates under the doctrine of command responsibility.
    The project did not find a single case in which an officer was held accountable under that doctrine, said Sina Shamsi, Senior Counsel at 'Human Rights First' organisation.
    "We found no indication that the military has even sought to prosecute officers under the command responsibility doctrine," said Shamsi.
    Washington Advocacy Director of 'Human Rights Watch' Tom Malinowski asserted that if the principles of command responsibility were to be applied, "the trail would inevitably lead to senior commanders and senior civilians who made the policies that led to the abuse".
    Moreover, Massimino said a non-restricted investigation needs to be conducted into the chain of command that "can look at whether the responsibility goes up to the secretary of defense or even higher".
    In order to remedy the serious failures of accountability that the DAA Project research documents, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First set forth a list of recommendations, some of which included a call on Congress to appoint an independent commission to review U.S. detention and interrogation policies and a call on the secretary of defense to investigate, initiate prosecutions and ensure that appropriate criminal action is taken.
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