Ex-CIA contractor David Passaro to stand trial in Afghan beating

[NorthernSun]

By ESTES THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. | In the weeks after the Abu Ghraib prison scandal stunned Iraq, a story emerged from Afghanistan about a CIA contractor named David Passaro, a former Special Forces medic accused of beating an Afghan detainee so severely that he later died.

More than three years later, after several soldiers working at Abu Ghraib have been sentenced to prison, Passaro will finally stand trial when jury selection begins Monday - in a civilian court in his home state of North Carolina. He is the first, and so far only, civilian to be charged with mistreating a detainee during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.wilmingtonstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060805/APN/608050523