Third prisoner death while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, one I hadn't heard about before. Not many details: no cause of death, no name, and (as with the others) no arrests.
________________________________________________________
U.S. Probes Death of Prisoner in Afghanistan
By April Witt, Washington Post, Tuesday, June 24, 2003
KABUL, Afghanistan, June 23 -- The U.S. military is investigating the death of an Afghan man in its custody over the weekend, the third such case reported here since the Taliban fell, officials said today.
The man died Saturday afternoon in a holding facility near Asadabad in the eastern province of Konar, said Col. Rodney Davis, a U.S. military spokesman.
"The man was taken under control June 18 [and] transported to the holding facility at a security compound, where he stayed until his death," Davis said in a statement from Bagram air base, headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Davis did not say why the man was detained or under what circumstances he died, saying only the cause of death was under investigation.
In December, two Afghan detainees died in U.S. custody at Bagram and their deaths were classified as homicides in March.
Earlier, military pathologists said one died of a heart attack and the other of a blood clot in the lung, but both showed signs of blunt-force trauma. The U.S. Army launched a criminal inquiry into the two deaths. That inquiry remains incomplete, a military official said.
washingtonpost.com |
