UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job

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Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:06:26 -0700 (PDT)

UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job

 

 

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=632719

 

 

UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job

 

By Nick Meo in Kabul

 

25 April 2005

 

The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced

out under American pressure just days after he presented a report

criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and

holding them in secret prisons.

 

Cherif Bassiouni had needled the US military since his appointment a

year ago, repeatedly trying, without success, to interview alleged

Taliban and al-Qa'ida prisoners at the two biggest US bases in

Afghanistan, Kandahar and Bagram.

 

Mr Bassiouni's report had highlighted America's policy of detaining

prisoners without trial and lambasted coalition officials for barring

independent human rights monitors from its bases.

 

Prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region are held

at US bases, often before being shipped to Guantanamo Bay. Human

Rights Watch called on Saturday for a US special prosecutor to

investigate the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and Charles Tenet,

the former-CIA director, for torture and abuse of detainees in jails

around the world, including Abu Ghraib in Iraq. They should be held

responsible under the doctrine of " command responsibility, " it said.

 

On Friday, the US army investigation into the torture of prisoners at

Abu Ghraib cleared four out of five top officers of responsibility for

the scandal which shocked the world when it broke a year ago. The only

officer recommended for punishment is Brigadier General Janis

Karpinski, who was in charge of Iraqi prisons at the time.

 

The UN eliminated Mr Bassiouni's job last week after Washington had

pressed for his mandate to be changed so that it would no longer cover

the US military.

 

Just days earlier, the Egyptian-born law professor, now based in

Chicago, had presented his criticisms in a 24-page report to the UN

Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

 

The report, based on a year spent travelling around Afghanistan

interviewing Afghans, international agency staff and the Afghan Human

Rights Commission, estimated that around 1,000 Afghans had been

detained and accused US troops of breaking into homes, arresting

residents and abusing them.