Afghan president 'shocked' by abuse report
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-22 08:51

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday he was shocked by a U.S. Army report on abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, saying his government wanted custody of all Afghan prisoners and control over U.S. military operations.

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai speaks during a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul May 21, 2005. Karzai said on Saturday he was shocked by a U.S. army report on abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, saying his government wanted custody of all Afghan prisoners and control over U.S. military operations. [Reuters]

The abuse described in the report, including details of the deaths of two inmates at an Afghan detention center, happened in 2002 and emerged from a nearly 2,000-page file of U.S. Army investigators, The New York Times reported on Friday.

"It has shocked me thoroughly and we condemn it," Karzai said at a news conference. "We want the U.S. government to take very, very strong action, to take away people like that."

Karzai, a staunch ally in the U.S.-led war against terrorism, was due to leave on a U.S trip on Saturday and meet President Bush for talks.

Karzai wants to forge a broad long-term partnership with his most important ally but he said he would also reiterate a request for the return of Afghan prisoners and control over U.S. military operations.

The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting militant leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

Karzai's visit to Washington follows violent anti-American protests in Afghan cities prompted by a Newsweek report that U.S. interrogators had desecrated the Koran. Sixteen people were killed and many wounded in the violence.

Newsweek retracted the report, but the International Committee of the Red Cross subsequently said it had told the Pentagon of allegations U.S. personnel had mishandled the Muslim holy book.

In his weekly radio address, Bush emphasized close ties with Afghanistan and said he would discuss with Karzai progress his country has made since the ousting of the Taliban by U.S. forces in 2001.

He did not mention the protests or the abuse report.

"We're helping Afghanistan's elected government solidify these democratic gains and deliver real change," Bush said. "A nation that once knew only the terror of the Taliban is now seeing a rebirth of freedom, and we will help them succeed."

HOUSE SEARCHES CRITICIZED

Many Afghans have criticized U.S. troops for what are seen as heavy-handed tactics, such as breaking into people's homes in the middle of the night in their search for militants.

At the news conference, Karzai said searches should be carried out in cooperation with Afghan forces.

"No operations inside Afghanistan should take place without the consultation of the Afghan government," he said.

"They should not go to our people's homes any more without the knowledge of the Afghan government. ... If they want any person suspected in a house, they should let us know and the Afghan government would arrange that."

Karzai said he would also ask for "the return of prisoners to Afghanistan, all of them."

The United States is holding more than 500 prisoners from its war on terrorism at the Guantanamo Bay naval base on Cuba. Many of them were detained in Afghanistan after the Taliban overthrow.

U.S. forces are also believed to be holding several hundred Afghans in Afghanistan.

The U.S. Army report centers on the death of a 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar and that of another detainee, Habibullah, who died at the U.S. base at Bagram, north of Kabul, six days earlier, in December 2002.

According to the report, Dilawar was chained by his wrists to the top of his cell for several days before he died and his legs had been pummeled by guards.

"The file depicts young, poorly trained soldiers in repeated incidents of abuse. The harsh treatment, which has resulted in criminal charges against seven soldiers, went well beyond the two deaths," The New York Times said.

In sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers described mistreatment ranging from a female interrogator stepping on a detainee's neck and kicking another in the genitals to a shackled prisoner being made to kiss the boots of interrogators, according to the newspaper.

In its Sunday edition, The Times said confidential military documents from the investigation into the Bagram deaths show Army officials initially opposed bringing criminal charges, even though autopsies found the deaths were homicides and soldiers testified the prisoners were struck by guards.

The Army's Criminal Investigation Command agents reported that they could not clearly determine who was responsible for the injuries, and military lawyers at Bagram took the same position, The Times said.

U.S. officials have characterized incidents of prisoner abuse at Bagram in 2002 as isolated problems that were thoroughly investigated, the newspaper said.

Two army interrogators have been reprimanded and seven soldiers have been charged, the newspaper said.

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