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CIA likely to avoid charges in most prisoner deaths
Despite signs of CIA involvement in at least 4 prisoner deaths in
Iraq and Afghanistan, CIA workers appear likely to escape criminal
charges in all but one case.
By Douglas Jehl and Tim Golden
10/23/05 "The
New York Times" -- --WASHINGTON -- Despite indications
of CIA involvement in the deaths of at least four prisoners in Iraq
and Afghanistan, CIA employees appear likely to escape criminal
charges in all but one of those incidents, according to current and
former intelligence and law enforcement officials.
Federal prosecutors reviewing cases of possible misconduct by CIA
employees have recently notified lawyers that they don't intend to
bring criminal charges in several cases involving the handling of
terrorism suspects and Iraqi insurgents, the officials said. Some of
the cases are still technically under review by the Justice
Department, but the intelligence and law enforcement officials said
they had been told that the department wasn't preparing charges
against CIA employees in those cases.
The Justice Department has charged only one person linked to the CIA
with wrongdoing in any of the cases: David Passaro, who was a
contract worker, not a CIA officer. Passaro is awaiting trial in
North Carolina in connection with his role in the death of a
prisoner in Afghanistan in June 2003.
The details of the CIA cases remain classified, as do the Justice
Department reviews. But the prosecutors' decisions appear to reflect
judgments that the CIA was far less culpable in the mistreatment of
prisoners than was the U.S. military. Dozens of soldiers have been
convicted or accepted administrative punishment for their actions in
cases in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The decisions are based on reviews of eight dossiers referred to the
Justice Department by the CIA's inspector general, describing
possible misconduct by a half-dozen to a dozen CIA employees in the
deaths and other cases.
It wasn't previously known that the CIA had sent eight dossiers to
the Justice Department, though it was reported in February that the
CIA inspector general had made at least two such referrals, asking
that the Justice Department review the cases for possible
prosecution.
In at least two cases, CIA officers could face punishment by CIA
internal accountability review boards, which could be convened at
the discretion of CIA Director Porter Goss.
CIA officials have expressed deep unease over the possibility that
career officers could be prosecuted or punished administratively for
their conduct during interrogations and detentions of terrorism
suspects.
In a classified report this summer, the Senate Intelligence
Committee expressed concern about what it called shortcomings in the
CIA's handling of prisoners, government officials briefed on the
document said.
An unclassified section said Goss had carried out only five of 10
recommendations made last year in a classified report by the CIA
inspector general.
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