Dilawar (human rights victim)

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A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell
A sketch by Thomas V. Curtis, a former Reserve M.P. sergeant, showing how Dilawar was chained to the ceiling of his cell

Dilawar (c.1979–December 5, 2002) was an Afghan prisoner at the Bagram prison in Afghanistan. He arrived at the prison on December 5, 2002, and was declared dead on December 10, 2002. He was a 22-year-old taxi driver and farmer who weighed 122 pounds and was 5 ft 9 in tall. He is survived by his 3-year-old daughter, Bibi Rashida. Leaked internal U.S. Army documentation has ruled that his death is due to a direct result of assaults and attacks he sustained at the hands of interrogators of the 519th Battalion of the U.S. Army during his stay at Bagram.

Contents

[edit] Arrest

The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005 that:[1]

"Four days before, on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.
"On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar's mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.
"At a taxi stand there, he found three men headed back toward Yakubi. On the way, they passed a base used by American troops, Camp Salerno, which had been the target of a rocket attack that morning.
"Militiamen loyal to the guerrilla commander guarding the base, Jan Baz Khan, stopped the Toyota at a checkpoint. They confiscated a broken walkie-talkie from one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers. In the trunk, they found an electric stabilizer used to regulate current from a generator. (Mr. Dilawar's family said the stabilizer was not theirs; at the time, they said, they had no electricity at all.)
"The four men were detained and turned over to American soldiers at the base as suspects in the attack. Mr. Dilawar and his passengers spent their first night there handcuffed to a fence, so they would be unable to sleep. When a doctor examined them the next morning, he said later, he found Mr. Dilawar tired and suffering from headaches but otherwise fine.
"In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.
"The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed "no threat" to American forces."

[edit] Abuse

The various accounts of abuse have been detailed as follows:

  • A black hood pulled over his head limiting his ability to breathe
  • Knee strikes to the abdomen
  • Over 100 peroneal strikes
  • Shoved against a wall
  • Pulled by his beard
  • His bare feet stepped on
  • Kicks to the groin
  • Chained to the ceiling for extended hours depriving him of sleep
  • Slammed his chest into a table front

[edit] Death

The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. A death certificate for Dilawar, aged 22, from Yakubi in eastern Afghanistan, and signed by Major Elizabeth Rouse, pathologist with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, states that the cause of death was "blunt-force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease".[2]

The military had publicly claimed that Dilawar had died from natural causes.

[edit] Culpability

In August 2005, Specialist Glendale Wells of the U.S. Army pleaded guilty at a military court to pushing Dilawar against a wall and doing nothing to prevent other soldiers from abusing him. Wells was subsequently sentenced to two months in a military prison. Two other soldiers convicted in connection with the case escaped custodial sentences. The light sentences were criticized by Human Rights Watch.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tim Golden, In U.S. Report, Brutal Details of 2 Afghan Inmates' Deaths, New York Times, May 20, 2005 - - mirror
  2. ^ 'They said this is America . . . if a soldier orders you to take off your clothes, you must obey', The Guardian, June 23, 2004

[edit] External links

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