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2 Afghan death certificates: A U.S. cover-up?
Kevin Diaz
Star Tribune Washington Bureau Correspondent
05/21/05 "Star
Tribune" - - WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Normally in the world of medical pathology, there's one death certificate per customer.
But in the case of Dilawar, an Afghan who died in U.S. custody in 2002, there appear to be two.
That's the finding of Dr. Steven Miles, a University of Minnesota bioethicist who has been investigating alleged human rights abuses by U.S. military medical personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The two death certificates, dated 17 months apart, both document the death of a 22-year-old taxi driver who was arrested by Afghan militiamen in December 2002. He was turned over to a U.S. detention center in Bagram, where he apparently died under interrogation a week later.
Both classify Dilawar's death as a homicide. But in one death certificate, he is a Caucasian of unspecified age and religion. In the other, he is a Muslim of "approximately 35 years," who was "found unresponsive in his cell while in custody."
Miles believes the twin death certificates -- one of them clearly altered -- are evidence of a cover-up. Pentagon officials say they've investigated Dilawar's death, along with at least two dozen other suspected criminal homicides, and have charged seven people.
A Defense Department spokesman said Friday that they are looking into the discrepancy of the two death certificates. "It's possible one was a report done out in the field, and the other was a final report based on the final autopsy," said Perry Bishop, a Health Affairs spokesman at the Pentagon.
Miles, however, contends that both death certificates bear signatures indicating a doctor's final approval. Neither is marked as preliminary, nor as pending an investigation.
The Pentagon has acknowledged that in a few cases, including Dilawar's, there had been false reports of natural deaths involving detainees. In March, Vice Admiral Albert Church found that Dilawar's case was one of three in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death.
Pentagon officials say the Church report is evidence that they are committed to stamping out mistreatment of prisoners.
"Clearly, when the incident took place, it prompted an immediate, aggressive, comprehensive, vigorous investigation," said Air Force Lt. Col. John Skinner, a Pentagon spokesman.
Dates of death conflict
Dilawar's first death certificate was released to reporters by the Pentagon on May 21, 2004. It was signed by Air Force Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, a Medical Corps doctor reporting that she had performed the autopsy on Dec. 13, 2002. It listed blunt force injuries as a cause of death and was dated May 20, 2004, the day before the news briefing.
The second, more complete, death certificate was released earlier this year in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union, Miles said.
It was also signed by Rouse, again attributed the death to blunt force injuries, but was dated December 13, 2002, three days after Dilawar's death.
"The question comes up, why are there two different death certificates for the same person?" Miles said. His answer: The more recent document was created as a substitute for the original, incomplete death certificate, which would be unlikely to pass muster in court.
Chris Kelly, a spokesman for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which issued the death certificates, said Rouse was not available Friday to explain the two certificates.
But, he added, "the cause of death remains the same, and nothing was changed."
Miles, who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2000 as a Democrat, is now working on a book, to be titled "Oath Betrayed," that he says documents at least 17 cases of detainee deaths by torture, including Dilawar's.
"This is an important part of history," he said. "The idea of us being a torturing nation is a new one."
Skinner said that the vast majority of the U.S. military's 70,000 prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq have been treated humanely.
But if military prosecutors go to trial in Dilawar's death, Miles said, the existence of two death certificates could be an issue: "Obviously, if you go to trial and the defense brings out two death certificates, the trial gets pretty chaotic at that point."
Kevin Diaz is at kdiaz@mcclatchydc.com
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