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The War Profiteers - War Crimes, Kidnappings,
Torture and Big Money |
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June 18th,
2004 - Contractor Indicted in Afghan Detainee’s Beating |
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Contractor Indicted in
Afghan Detainee’s Beating By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Ariel Hart The New York Times June 18, 2004 Washington - A federal grand
jury in North Carolina on Thursday indicted a contractor employed by the
Central Intelligence Agency who is accused of kicking and beating a detainee
over two days at a military base in Afghanistan last June. The detainee died
the next day. Prosecutors said the Afghan
detainee had voluntarily surrendered at the front gate of the Asadabad base
in Afghanistan and was suspected of involvement in rocket attacks on the
base. The indictment is the first
against any civilian as part of the prisoner abuse scandal that now involves
six investigations of military and civilian personnel in Afghanistan and
Iraq. At a news conference in
Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that David A. Passaro,
38, a resident of Lillington, N.C., had been indicted in Raleigh on two
counts of assault with a dangerous weapon and two counts of assault resulting
in serious bodily injury. If convicted, Mr. Passaro faces up to 40 years in
prison. Mr. Ashcroft said Mr.
Passaro "brutally" beat the detainee, Abdul Wali, with his hands,
feet and a large flashlight, during interrogation sessions on June 19 and 20
last year. Mr. Ashcroft declined to provide additional details - or say
whether other factors might have contributed to Mr. Wali's death - except to
say that the assault charges reflect what the government believes "will
be supported at trial." "The United States will
not tolerate criminal acts of brutality and violence against detainees such
as those alleged in this indictment," Mr. Ashcroft said. Mr. Passaro's lawyer, Gerald
Beaver, said he was stunned when his client was picked up, saying he had been
in consultation with the government since March and believed Mr. Passaro
would be allowed to surrender himself if there were any indictments. "Of course he claims
innocence," Mr. Beaver said. "The events did not happen and those
that were described have been exaggerated substantially." Fourteen years ago, Mr.
Passaro was fired by the Police Department in Hartford, Conn., just months
after graduating from the Police Academy, after being arrested, according to
a department spokeswoman, Nancy Mulroy. The state police in Connecticut said
Mr. Passaro had been arrested in October 1990, on felony assault charges and
was convicted of the lesser charge of breach of peace, a misdemeanor, in July
1991. He paid a $100 fine. The C.I.A. declined to say
Thursday whether agency officials had been aware of that history, or whether
it would have prohibited him from working with detainees. C.I.A. officials emphasized
that they immediately referred the beating case to law enforcement
authorities last year. "We take allegations of
wrongdoing very seriously, and it's important to bear in mind that the C.I.A.
immediately reported these allegations to the agency's inspector general and
the Department of Justice," said an agency spokeswoman, Anya Guilsher.
"While we cannot comment on the specifics of this case, given that it is
currently before the court, the agency does not support or condone unlawful
activities of any sort and has an obligation to report possible violations of
the law to the appropriate authorities, which was done promptly in this
case." Mr. Passaro was arrested
Thursday at Fort Bragg, in Fayetteville, N.C., where he had worked as a
medical specialist in the deputy chief of staff surgeon's office at the
Army's Special Operations command headquarters. In that job, Mr. Passaro
served as a civilian medical planner, working with small teams of Special
Forces personnel, but he requested and was granted an unpaid leave to go to
Afghanistan in 2003, said Walter Sokalski, a spokesman for the Army Special
Operations command at Fort Bragg. Mr. Passaro worked directly
for the C.I.A. as an independent contractor for six months in 2003, a United
States official said. Mr. Ashcroft said that the
investigation into Mr. Wali's death would continue, and that additional
charges could be brought if further evidence developed. Referring to other
prisoner abuse allegations, Mr. Ashcroft said the Justice Department had
received one referral from the Department of Defense and
"additional" referrals from the C.I.A. Mr. Passaro is being
prosecuted by the office of the United States attorney in Raleigh, Frank
Whitney, a decision that Mr. Ashcroft said was made early this year
"before the exposure generally of the allegations about the prison in
Iraq." He said future abuse cases
would be handled by federal prosecutors in the eastern district of Virginia,
whose territory includes the Pentagon and C.I.A. Officials have said that the
C.I.A. inspector general has been investigating the involvement of C.I.A.
contractors and officers in two other deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Passaro's former wife,
Kerry, said in an interview from Fayetteville, N.C., that the marriage lasted
from 1988 to 2001. She said Mr. Passaro trained as an Army Ranger and was
posted at Fort Bragg as a member of the Special Forces. "He did that a couple
years," Ms. Passaro said. "Then he just decided not to re-enlist,
which kind of surprised me. He got a government job. About that time he
started hanging out with government people." Ms. Passaro said that during
their marriage her husband was very secretive about his government work and
that she never heard that he might be working for the C.I.A. "The job he
went to after he got out was a government position, G-6 or G-8, with Special
Forces, right on Fort Bragg," she said. She and Mr. Passaro's
brother, Stephen, who was reached in Connecticut, recalled the incident, a
fight, that cost Mr. Passaro his police job differently. Neither was a
witness. Ms. Passaro recalled that
Mr. Passaro simply started beating a man at a bar whose attitude offended
him. But Stephen Passaro said that after some disagreement at the bar, the
man approached Mr. Passaro as he sat in his car with a seat belt on at a gas
station and started hitting him through the car window. External link: http://nytimes.com/2004/06/18/politics/18DETA.html |