JAG CENTRAL

From the NY Times, 3 Charged in Prisoner Abuse Case:

An Army officer and two more of his soldiers from a Reserve unit have been charged in a prisoner abuse investigation in Afghanistan, the Army announced Tuesday.

The officer, Capt. Christopher M. Beiring, who led the 377th Military Police Company based in Cincinnati, was charged with dereliction of duty and making a false official statement. He is the first officer to be charged in the investigation.

The abuse case primarily involves two detainees who died at the Bagram Air Base detention center, where Captain Beiring's unit worked. The first, Mullah Habibullah, was found dead in his cell at the detention center just days after being taken into American custody in December 2002. A second detainee, Dilawar, arrived at Bagram the day after Mr. Habibullah died. Mr. Dilawar died about a week later.

Investigators say Captain Beiring did not properly train or supervise soldiers under his command in legal uses of force, according to documents released by the Army. He is also accused of failing to take steps to correct the soldiers' actions - as directed by his superior and a legal adviser - after Mr. Habibullah died. In addition, Captain Beiring is accused of lying about training his soldiers received.

Staff Sgt. Brian L. Doyle and Sgt. Duane M. Grubb, both from the unit Captain Beiring commanded, were also charged Tuesday. Sergeant Doyle faces charges of dereliction of duty and maltreatment. Sergeant Grubb is accused of assault, maltreatment and making a false official statement.

In the shocker of the day, from USA Today of all places, a story about military intelligence interrogators at Gitmo reportedly giving inmates the names and SSNs of their guards in exchange for intel. The article proving that buddy is only half the word, entitled MPs Accuse Gitmo Interrogators Of Giving Suspects Personal Data:

A U.S. inquiry into alleged abuse at Guantanamo uncovered a climate of deep distrust between military police and interrogators, who were accused during the probe of giving terror suspects personal information about their guards.
The MPs suspected interrogators gave their names and Social Security numbers to prisoners in exchange for intelligence, according to the investigation, which recommended that a senior interrogator be relieved of duty for "failure to know his enemy."

The interrogator "sees himself as a hero for the detainees, and against the MPs, on a crusade in the battle of the MPs against the detainees," one investigator wrote in the report on the inquiry that The Associated Press obtained under a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

The report recommended military authorities look further into the disclosure of MP information to detainees. Guantanamo officials didn't respond to repeated questions about the investigation, including whether the interrogator — a military officer — was relieved of duty or whether the prison camp instituted any reforms in response to the findings.

The investigation began in March 2004, when the same interrogator claimed military police had abused detainees at the high-security camp in eastern Cuba, where the United States holds about 500 men captured in its war on terror.

The interrogator claimed that guards mistreated a suspected al-Qaeda member by not allowing him to use the bathroom immediately after a five-hour interrogation and that at other times withheld food and turned the temperature down on a cell to 52 degrees as punishment.

An investigating officer, however, found no evidence of abuse by the guards.

The investigator faulted the interrogator instead — recommending he be relieved of his duties for reasons that included a "failure to know his enemy," the "unfounded" allegations against the guards and "the noted possibility that he suffers from Reverse Stockholm Syndrome."

Categories: Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Detainee+Abuse, Newspapers