Cuando las mentalidades de los superiores de las fuerzas actúan de este modo, no podemos asombrarnos que la SOA haya hecho lo mismo con sus esbirros en el resto del mundo.
Lo interesante es que aquí fueron los mismos gringos los que salieron al escenario.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Justice closes CIA probe without charges
By Greg Miller, Published: August 30 | Updated: Friday, August 31, 2:00 AM
The Justice Department said Thursday that it would not file charges in connection with the deaths of two prisoners held in CIA custody a decade ago, closing the last active criminal investigation into the agency’s treatment of prisoners after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.The decision marks the culmination of a criminal probe that took nearly five years, examined the treatment of about 100 prisoners and branched out far beyond its initial scope — but ultimately produced no charges against any CIA officer.
In a statement, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. signaled that the decision had more to do with the difficulties of assembling evidence — from incidents that had happened years earlier in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq — than with a conclusion that no crime had occurred.
The department has “declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt,” Holder said.
Nevertheless, the news was welcomed by the CIA as a long-awaited opportunity to move past a period in the agency’s history that had put dozens of officers in legal jeopardy.
“Today’s announcement brings the two remaining cases to a close,” CIA Director David H. Petraeus said in a statement to agency employees. He said the agency’s cooperation with the investigation was “important” despite an inclination “to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past.”
One of the cases involved the death of an Afghan, Gul Rahman, who was being held at a CIA facility known as the Salt Pit in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was allegedly doused with water and left out in frigid overnight weather to die.
The second involved an Iraqi, Maadel al-Jamadi, who was apprehended by U.S. special operations troops before being interrogated by CIA officers at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison compound in Iraq in 2003.
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the decision as “yet another entry in what is already a shameful record” of the Justice Department.
“That the Justice Department will hold no one accountable for the killing of prisoners in CIA custody is nothing short of a scandal,” Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement. “The Justice Department has declined to bring charges against the officials who authorized torture, the lawyers who sought to legitimate it, and the interrogators who used it.”
The identities of the CIA officers involved in the cases have not been publicly disclosed.
The investigation of the deaths was led by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham, who had expanded the scope of a probe begun in 2008 of the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videotapes. The tapes inquiry was also closed with no criminal charges.
Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Associated Press
CIA Headquarters. The US Government will not bring about criminal charges for the death of Gul Rahman who died in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002, after being shackled to a cold concrete wall. (photo: AFP)
Justice Department Won't Bring Charges Over CIA Interrogations
By Pete Yost, Associated Press31 August 12
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Justice Department announced Thursday it has ended its investigation into CIA
interrogations of terrorist detainees without bringing criminal charges.The decision in the probes of the deaths of two terrorist suspects marks the end of a wide-ranging criminal investigation by federal prosecutor John Durham into interrogation practices during the presidency of George W. Bush.
Durham has looked into the treatment of 101 detainees in U.S. custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Durham's probe into another episode involving the CIA began in January 2008 when the Justice Department chose him to conduct a criminal investigation into the agency's destruction of videotapes it had made of its interrogations of terrorist suspects.
In August 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder expanded Durham's mandate to include a preliminary review of the CIA's interrogation of specific detainees overseas. In June 2011, Holder approved Durham's request to move into a full criminal investigation of the two deaths.
The 2009 expansion followed the public release of an internal CIA inspector general's report that revealed agency interrogators once threatened to kill a Sept. 11 suspect's children and suggested another would be forced to watch his mother be sexually assaulted. The report said some CIA interrogators went beyond Bush administration restrictions that gave them wide latitude to use severe tactics such as waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique.
In regard to the just-completed probe of the two detainees' deaths, Holder said that "based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt."
In a message to employees Thursday, CIA Director David Petraeus said that "as intelligence officers, our inclination, of course, is to look ahead to the challenges of the future rather than backwards at those of the past. Nonetheless, it was very important that we supported fully the Justice Department in its efforts" and "I would like to thank everyone who played a role" in doing so.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said he was "heartened that the investigation is complete, and I'm heartened by the results. I had great confidence in Mr. Durham. I just regret that many CIA officers had to go through yet another review of these activities."
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the outcome of the investigation "nothing short of a scandal."
"Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment," Jaffer said.
Durham's review examined whether CIA interrogators used any unauthorized interrogation techniques, and if so, whether the techniques could constitute violations of the torture statute or any other laws. The approach taken in the probe was not to prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees.
Thursday's announcement came in the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.
Rahman died in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002, after being shackled to a cold concrete wall in a secret CIA prison in northern Kabul, Afghanistan, known as the Salt Pit. He was suspected of links to the terrorist group al-Qaida. Rahman is the only detainee known to have died in a CIA-run prison.
Before Durham looked into Rahman's death, two other federal prosecutors conducted separate reviews and could not prove the CIA officer running the Salt Pit had intended to harm the detainee — a point made in a government document that has been released publicly.
Al-Jamadi died in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A military autopsy declared al-Jamadi's death a homicide.
At Abu Ghraib prison, instead of turning al-Jamadi over to the Army, CIA officers took him to a shower stall. They put a sandbag over his head, cuffed his hands behind his back and chained his arms to a barred window. When he leaned forward, his arms stretched painfully behind and above his back.
Within an hour, he was dead.
At least three CIA employees came under scrutiny, including a paramilitary officer who ran what was known as the detainee exploitation cell at Abu Ghraib.
The officer was on the raid when a group of Navy SEALs captured al-Jamadi. He processed al-Jamadi into the prison but he was not in the shower room when al-Jamadi died.
The officer failed to have a doctor supervise al-Jamadi before he was processed into the prison, violating agency procedures. The officer, who was reprimanded over the incident, now works for a defense contractor.
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