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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.
