US guards at Afghan prison trained to torture detainees: soldier

US soldiers guarding the prison at Bagram air base, Afghanistan, were specially instructed to deliver deadly blows to detainees, a US private accused of prisoner abuse told investigators recently.

Willie Brand, a former military policeman at Bagram, said in his court statements that tortures were commonly used when prisoners resist being hooded or shackled, according to Monday's The New York Times.

Last week, he pleaded guilty in the case about the brutal deaths in 2002 of two Afghan prisoners at the detention facility.

Brand admitted that In Dec. 2002, he repeatedly struck two shackled detainees above the knee with blows intended to incapacitate the leg by hitting the common peroneal nerve.

He struck the first detainee, named Mullah Habibullah, about four times so he could force a hood over his head.

The second detainee, a young taxi driver known as Dilawar, was beaten at least 37 times after showing recalcitrance.

Both of the detainees died soon after the beating. Brand insisted that the knee strikes were taught at Bagram as a basic way to gain the compliance of prisoners.

Earlier, a lawyer for another military policeman involved in the same case, said the Bagram guards were "specifically authorized to use force to gain compliance."

In separate interviews with investigators, other former Bagram guards also said the beating methods were part of training before they were deployed overseas.

However, Brig. Gen. Theodore Nicholas, then senior military intelligence official at Bagram, denied the allegations of systematic torture, saying he even did "not recall" detainees being shackled at that time.

So far, nine US soldiers have been prosecuted in this case and investigators have recommended criminal charges against 18 others, including two captains and a military police commander at Bagram.

Despite being faced with more and more evidences suggesting systematic abuses in US detention facilities, the US military insisted those incidents are only personal acts of a few rogue soldiers.

Source: Xinhua