Bagram torture and prisoner abuse
Hajimumin, another prisoner, told Al Jazeera[1] that they tied them to chairs and applied electric shocks for 30 seconds a time for torture purposes.
[citation needed] In January 2010, the American military released the names of 645 detainees held at the main detention center at Bagram, modifying its long-held position against publishing such information.
James P. Boland saw Mr. Habibullah on Dec. 3, he was in one of the isolation cells, tethered to the ceiling by two sets of handcuffs and a chain around his waist.
[6]Dilawar, who died on December 10, 2002, was a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver and farmer who weighed 122 pounds and was described by his interpreters as neither violent nor aggressive.
It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.
[11]Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani citizen educated in the United States as a neuroscientist, was suspected of the attempted assault and killing of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
Yvonne Ridley says that Siddiqui is the "Grey Lady of Bagram" – a ghostly female detainee, who kept prisoners awake "with her haunting sobs and piercing screams".
Mohamad identified a photo of Aafia Siddiqui as the woman whom he and other male detainees had seen at Bagram, known as "Prisoner 650".
[14] Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, a Somali refugee who worked for a funds transfer company, described his Bagram interrogation as "torture".
He was put into an isolation chamber that was maintained at a piercingly cold temperature for several weeks, and deprived of sufficient rations during this period.
[citation needed] Zalmay Shah, a citizen of Afghanistan, alleges mistreatment during detention at Bagram air base.
According to the article:[16] While delivering one wanted man into U.S. custody, Shah was himself arrested, hooded, shackled, and stripped.
Convicted in August 2005, of assault, maltreatment, making a false sworn statement, and maiming, charges involving Dilawar.
[35][36] Specialist Glendale C. Walls II was charged in early May 2005 with assault, maltreatment of a detainee, and failure to obey a lawful order.
At trial in August 2005, Specialist Walls admitted to abusing the detainee and was sentenced to a reduction to E-1, two months of confinement, and a bad-conduct discharge.
Suspected of stepping on Dilawar's bare foot, grabbing his beard, kicking him, and then ordering the detainee to remain chained to the ceiling.
At trial, Salcedo pleaded guilty and received a sentence of a one-grade reduction in rank, $1,000 fine, and a written reprimand.
While serving at Abu Ghraib, SPC Corsetti allegedly forced an Iraqi woman to strip during questioning; he was fined and demoted.
PFC Corsetti was fined and demoted while assigned to Abu Ghraib for not having permission to conduct an interrogation.
It showed the tragic impact of the initial decision by Mr. Bush and his top advisers that they were not going to follow the Geneva Conventions, or indeed American law, for prisoners taken in antiterrorist operations.
The investigative file on Bagram, obtained by The Times, showed that the mistreatment of prisoners was routine: shackling them to the ceilings of their cells, depriving them of sleep, kicking and hitting them, sexually humiliating them and threatening them with guard dogs -- the very same behavior later repeated in Iraq.
This particular report is significant as the first official response of the U.S. government to allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.
[47] While the formal handover occurred in 2013, the U.S. maintained some level of involvement in detention operations in Afghanistan until the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2021.
[49] In May 2010, the BBC reported about nine prisoners who "told consistent stories of being held in isolation in cold cells where a light is on all day and night.
When the BBC sought information from the International Committee of the Red Cross about this, the ICRC revealed that it had been informed in August 2009, by U.S. authorities that they maintained a second facility at Bagram, commonly known as the Black Jail,[50] where detainees were held in isolation due to "military necessity".
[52][53] The 2007 documentary Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, focuses on the murder of Dilawar by US troops at Bagram.
