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Daily Mail Wins Partial Declassification of British Court Decision Documenting Torture in Afghan Prison

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Certified for torture.

Certified for torture.

Today marks the third time that I have used this photo that remarkably still resides on ISAFMedia’s Flickr photostream. The caption, in full, as it has always been carried by ISAFMedia:

CAMP DARULAMAN, Afghanistan – Brig. Gen. Saffiullah, Afghan National Army Military Police Brigade commander, holds a certificate presented by Vice Adm. Robert Harward, Joint Task Force 435 commander. The certificate was presented during a ceremony here April 5 in front of an ANA Military Police brigade. The brigade will complete the extensive training program prior to their assumption of detention facility security operations at the Detention Facility in Parwan. The brigade already conducts detention and corrections operations at the Afghan National Detention Facility in Pol-e-Charkhi. The event was another step toward the transition of the detention facility from the United States to the Afghan government. (Photo by U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Joost Verduyn)

The date of April 5 on the photo refers to the year 2010. Of particular importance today is the bit where, on that date, the caption states that the Afghan National Army (after training by Robert Harward’s JSOC team) was “already” in charge of the Afghan prison facility at Pol-e-Charkhi. That prison is in Kabul. And that documentation of US-trained personnel controlling that prison is very important for this story published yesterday by the Daily Mail:

The Mail on Sunday has delivered a decisive blow against the creeping new culture of ‘secret justice’ after forcing the disclosure of a classified High Court judgment about torture in Afghanistan.

After a ten-month legal battle, we can at last reveal horrifying allegations over the treatment of prisoners captured by British forces in Afghanistan – evidence the Ministry of Defence wanted to keep secret.

More details from the article:

We can reveal the secret ruling concerns a supposed Taliban leader, described only as Detainee 806.

When he was held by UK troops in January 2010, there was already a moratorium banning the transfer of prisoners to the NDS in Kabul, because its interrogation centre there – codenamed Department 17 – had gained a sinister reputation for torture and British forces found it impossible to gain access.

The prisoner at the heart of this particular case pursued by the Daily Mail was arrested in January of 2010 and sent, against normal British procedures, to the Kabul prison, where he was hidden from British personnel for about a month while he was tortured: Read more →

JSOC Denial of Ignoring Torture in Afghan Prisons Not Credible–They Trained Afghan Military Police

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Brig. Gen. Saffiullah, Afghan National Army Military Police Brigade commander, proudly displays his certificate from Robert Harward, left, on April 5, 2010. (Air Force photo)

Yesterday, the Washington Post finally caught up to where Marcy was over two weeks ago and discussed the UN report “Treatment of Conflict-Related Detainees in Afghan Custody” (pdf).  I’d like to move beyond the primary findings of the report, that torture is widespread in Afghan detention facilities and that the US continued bringing prisoners to these facilities long after other nations discontinued the practice due to concerns over reports of torture, and to examine US denials of knowledge regarding the torture.

First, to set the stage from the Post article:

Department 124 was long sealed off from the outside world; the ICRC, the United Nations and other organizations concerned with human rights were barred by Afghan officials from monitoring conditions there.

But American officials frequently went inside, according to Afghan officials and others familiar with the site. U.S. Special Operations troops brought detainees there, and CIA officials met with Department 124’s leadership on a weekly basis, reviewed their interrogation reports and used the intelligence gleaned from interrogations to inform their operations, the officials said.

And now the denial I’m most interested in:

One U.S. official in Kabul said the CIA officers and Special Operations troops would not have ignored torture. “Not in the post-Abu Ghraib era,” the official said. “All American entities out there are hyper-aware of these allegations and would report them up the chain.”

We will dismiss the CIA denial out of hand: documentation of CIA torture practices and the CIA’s attempts to have DOJ provide legal cover for them now fills many books. However, JSOC involvement in torture is less well-documented despite the fact that JSOC torture played a central, but under-reported, role in David Petraeus’ COIN strategy as implemented in both Iraq and Afghanistan.  Petraeus’ primary operative in implementing the torture strategy in both countries was Stanley McChrystal. Read more →