SAN DIEGO – The CIA interrogated and roughed up Iraqi prisoners in a “romper room” where a handcuffed and hooded terror suspect was kicked, slapped and punched shortly before he died last year at the Abu Ghraib prison, a Navy SEAL testified Monday.
Blood was visible on the hood worn by the prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, as he was led into the interrogation room at Baghdad International Airport in November 2003, the Navy commando said at a military pretrial hearing for another SEAL accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners.
Testifying under a grant of immunity, the witness, identified only by his rank as a hospital corpsman, said he kicked al-Jamadi several times, slapped him in the back of the head and punched him. Five or six other CIA personnel in the room laid their hands on the prisoner, he said, but he did not provide details.
Sometime later, Al-Jamadi was found dead in a shower room at Abu Ghraib less than an hour after two CIA personnel brought him into Abu Ghraib as a so-called “ghost detainee,” according to Army Maj. Gen. George Fay’s report on the notorious prison. Such detainees were not listed in the normal roster of military prisoners.
The testimony about the CIA’s role came during a hearing for an aviation boatswain’s mate who is accused of punching al-Jamadi and posing in humiliating photos with the prisoner. The boatswain’s mate allegedly twisted other prisoners’ testicles and struck a prisoner in the buttocks with a wooden board.
An Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, was held to determine whether the boatswain’s mate should be court-martialed.
The hearing concluded Monday. An investigating officer will recommend what charges, if any, the boatswain’s mate should face.
The accused SEAL, who received the Purple Heart for wounds suffered in Iraq, could get up to 11 years in prison if convicted.
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