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01/06/2005:
"Trickle of Prison Abuse Reports Becoming A Torrent"
NEW YORK - Even as the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal faces court-martial Friday, human rights groups are questioning whether his case is really the ”aberration” the Pentagon claims.”The trial of Charles Graner is a first step toward accountability, but no one should confuse it with the end of the process,” said Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch. ”The issue isn't only who was the local ringleader, but whether his superiors led him to believe he had permission to engage in such atrocities.”
The scope of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners, at home and abroad, has continued to widen in recent weeks, even as the government is reportedly considering building a 25-million-dollar, 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever appear before a military tribunal for lack of evidence.
In December, a federal court ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to turn over documents to human rights groups that it had previously refused to divulge regarding prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, under a law that allows citizens access to public records.
Full Article: commondreams.org
