US soldiers abused inmates at second Iraqi prison

WASHINGTON - Damning evidence of American soldiers abusing detainees at a second prison in Iraq was made public yesterday.

It details how prisoners were "systematically and intentionally mistreated" at a military base in Mosul, culminating in one death. Nobody was court martialled over the abuse.

An investigation by a US officer after an Iraqi prisoner's jaw was broken found that inmates were compelled to do exhausting physical exercises until they collapsed, deprived of sleep, subjected to deafening heavy metal music, and had cigarette smoke blown into the sandbags they were forced to wear as hoods.

One soldier said troops "always harassed the hell out of detainees", and another said that at times "the detainees would get so scared they would piss themselves".

Eventually, in December 2003, a prisoner died after four days of physical exercises as a punishment, according to the documents.

They were obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act, and establish that mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners was not confined to Abu Ghraib, where abuse and sexual humiliation of inmates caused worldwide outrage last year.

The investigating officer said the holding facility at Mosul was run by the 311th Military Intelligence (MI) Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division.

In a memo, he said: "There is evidence that suggests the 311th MI personnel and/or translators [were] engaged in physical torture of the detainees."

His January 2004 report said the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions were violated, and added that the troops concerned were encouraged to abuse prisoners.

The investigation was triggered by the case of 20-year-old Salah Salih Jassim, who had his jaw broken in detention. He had been arrested along with his father, an officer in Saddam Hussein's Fedayeen militia.

Deafening heavy metal music was played, and guards threw cold water on to hooded prisoners and sounded bullhorns beside their heads.

Mr Jassim told investigators: "All night they were throwing water. From the night to the next day they were beating us."

The report said: "The guards were shouting at the detainees to perform exercises. The detainees had sandbags over their heads that were marked with different crimes, leading the guards to believe that [they] committed that particular crime."

The bag on Mr Jassim's head was marked "IED" - the acronym for improvised explosive device, the roadside bombs that have killed and maimed hundreds of troops. Soldiers who were in the room when Mr Jassim's jaw was broken all said they did not see the incident. The report concluded that he was most probably hit in the face.

The investigation was unable to determine which guards were at fault, so none were punished. But the officer said many of his recommendations for improvements were implemented.

The newly released records also contained details of other abuse investigations. In one, soldiers admitted they had rounded up suspected looters near Baghdad in the summer of 2003, stripped them naked and told them to walk home.

The staff sergeant in charge of that unit was given an "other than honourable" discharge, and two other soldiers were given letters of reprimand, said US Army spokesman Col Jeremy Martin.

And last week the US Army reopened an investigation into how an Iraqi government scientist died while in US detention.

Mohammad Munim al-Izmerly, who died in 2004, is the only known weapons scientist among at least 96 detainees who have died in US custody in Iraq.

- Independent