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CIA allegedly hid evidence of
Iraqi detainee's torture and murder - report
By AFX News
WASHINGTON (AFX) - CIA interrogators apparently tried to cover up
the death of an Iraqi 'ghost detainee' who died while being
interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison, Time magazine reported today,
after obtaining hundreds of pages of documents, including an autopsy
report, about the case.
The death of secret detainee Manadel al-Jamadi was ruled a homicide
in a Defense Department autopsy, Time reported, adding that
documents it recently obtained included photographs of his battered
body, which had been kept on ice to keep it from decomposing,
apparently to conceal the circumstances of his death.
The details about his death emerge as US officials continue to
debate congressional legislation to ban torture of foreign detainees
by US troops overseas, and efforts by the George W. Bush
administration to obtain an exemption for the CIA from any future
torture ban.
Jamadi was abducted by US Navy Seals on November 4, 2003, on
suspicion of harbouring explosives and involvement in the bombing of
a Red Cross centre in Baghdad that killed 12 people, and was placed
in Abu Ghraib as an unregistered detainee.
After some 90 minutes of interrogation by CIA officials, he died of
'blunt force injuries' and 'asphyxiation', according to the autopsy
documents obtained by Time.
A forensic scientist who later reviewed the autopsy report told Time
that the most likely cause of Jamadi's death was suffocation, which
would have occurred when an empty sandbag was placed over his head
while his arms were secured up and behind his back, in a
crucifixion-like pose.
Blood was mopped up with a chlorine solution before the
interrogation scene could be examined by an investigator, Time
wrote, adding that after Jamadi's death, a bloodstained hood that
had covered his head had disappeared.
Photos of grinning US soldiers crouching over Jamadi's corpse were
among the disturbing images that emerged from the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal in 2004, prompting international outrage and internal US
military investigations.
Last week, the New Yorker magazine reported that the US government's
policies on interrogating terrorist suspects may preclude the
prosecution of CIA agents who commit abuses or even kill detainees,
and said the CIA had been implicated in the death of at least four
detainees.
Mark Swanner, the CIA agent who interrogated Jamadi, has not been
charged with a crime and continues to work for the agency. He told
investigators that he did not harm Jamadi, Time wrote.
newsdesk@afxnews.com
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