Pentagon documents reveal attacks on Afghan prisoners

US military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using investigation methods they learned during self-defence training, according to Pentagon documents.

Detainees at the Gardez Detention Facility in south-eastern Afghanistan reported being made to kneel outside in wet clothing and being kicked and punched in the kidneys, nose and knees if they moved, the documents, released yesterday, show.

A 2006 US Army review of the case concluded that the detainees were not abused, but that the incident revealed “misconduct that warrants further action”.

The documents, which were turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union, focus on the 2003 death of Afghan detainee Jamal Nasser, who died in US custody at the Gardez building.

The documents detail interrogation techniques used on eight detainees, including Nasser, who were suspected of weapons trafficking.

The army review found that abuse did not cause Nasser’s death. But the documents include interviews with some interrogators who acknowledged slapping the detainees – a technique they learned during survival training at the army’s SERE – Survive, Evade, Resist and Escape – school.

“You say you gave permission for (edited) to hit detainees during interrogations; did you have a memorandum or order from your higher headquarters authorising that?” a military criminal investigator asked an interrogator, according to a November 2004 transcript among more than 300 pages of documents.

“No, I did not have a memorandum and had not seen one,” the interrogator answered, according to the transcript. “I used tactics that were used in SERE.”

The investigator continued: “Did you see ... hit detainees during the interviews?”

“Yes, open or closed slaps, not punches,” the interrogator answered.

In another interview that day, according to the documents, the army investigator asks whether “you ever heard of a tactic of pouring cold water or a water and snow mix on persons captured?”

“They do spray cold water on prisoners,” the interrogator answered, referring to SERE lessons. That interrogator was unaware, however, of men in his unit pouring cold water over the detainees, as the Afghans later complained.

ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said such interrogation techniques were taught at SERE schools only to show soldiers how to withstand them from enemy captors. She called the methods, when used together, a form of torture.

“They were intended to be defensive methods, not offensive methods,” Ms Singh said. “This raises serious questions about the interrogation methods that were being applied in Afghanistan.”

SERE methods were also used on detainees by military interrogators in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Ms Singh said.

The Pentagon and the army did not immediately respond to requests for comment last night.

The 2004 criminal inquiry of Nasser’s death was among a string of probes into alleged abuse of prisoners in US jails in Afghanistan.

Trying to deflect the kind of scandal that followed the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan ordered a review of their secretive network of about 20 jails at bases across Afghanistan.

Nasser was among eight detainees who were held at Gardez for between 18 and 20 days. The army concluded he died of a stomach ailment.