Witness: CIA interrogator enraged by Afghan detainee

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/08/09/prisonerabuse.cia.ap/index.html

An ex-CIA contractor on trial for allegedly beating an Afghan detainee during an interrogation grew enraged when the man wasn't able to answer questions about rocket attacks, a retired Army Special Forces soldier testified Wednesday.

David Passaro is charged with beating Abdul Wali over two days in June 2003 while questioning him about attacks on a remote base housing U.S. and Afghan troops. Wali later died.

Passaro is the first American civilian charged with mistreating a detainee during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It became clear he (Wali) was not going to be a font of information," said retired Chief Warrant Officer Brian Halstead. "Dave starts getting mad, real mad. Dave starts hollering. Dave is screaming at this guy. ... Red in the face, spit flying, finger-poking. He was going off."

[Mabus]

1. He allegedly used the same methods on his stepson

Shouldn't the CIA be held culpable too?

In court documents made public Tuesday, prosecutors revealed that they want to call Passaro's 26-year-old stepson, Matthew Michael Newman, to testify about how Passaro beat him until he was a teenager.

***

Newman, a former Marine, told federal officials that Passaro would interrogate him about minor household mishaps from a spill to a damaged screen door. Newman says Passaro would beat him with a stick wrapped in cloth to avoid leaving marks on his body. Newman says Passaro also would beat him with a spoon, a hammer and a flashlight on the elbows, upper arms, legs and outer thighs -- locations that lessen the likelihood of leaving marks, prosecutors say.

***

Prosecutors say that years later Passaro was interrogating Wali when he beat the detainee with a large flashlight about his elbows, knees, hips, wrists, hands and midsection. Passaro would blind Wali by shining the flashlight into his eyes and then deliver another blow.

Prosecutors argue that Passaro's prior conduct with his stepson will help prove to the jury that the former Green Beret knew what he was doing when he used a flashlight to beat Wali during an interrogation. "Passaro engaged in similar acts of sadism intentionally calculated to maximize the infliction of pain while minimizing the evidence of injury," prosecutors write in the motion.
http://www.newsobserver.com/497/story/418179.html

[soothsayer]

3. Why does the us govt embrace obvious psychos?

Bizarre that this guy has not been locked away somewhere.

[Mabus]

4. Because they require so little training?

They had to have had an inkling that this guy wasn't right and hasn't been for a long time.

Steven Green was discharged with a personality disorder. He was probably on some CIA recruitment list before he got picked up for raping Abeer and killing & burning her and her family with his buddies in Iraq.

[Javaman]

6. because the prez* is a psycho. nt

[drduffy]

2. the CIA

duh, why am I not surprised.

Death to the Empire AND death to the CIA. Long live the Republic.

[ShockediSay]

5. CIA had a bad rap in Viet Nam as well

beyond brutal, as I gather

[warrens]

7. This is the same case that This American Life covered

Karzai's son went with him to Afghanistan, and took a tape recorder with him. It was supposed to be a human interest piece, but the kid was there when his uncle surrendered this guy to the U.S. forces. He was suspected of launching a rocket at their base, I think. Suddenly, he's dead, after the uncle had guaranteed that he would be OK. When they gave the body back, they said he'd had a heart attack, but they had cut him up for an autopsy, so no one could tell what happened to him. But he looked beat up good.

You can find it on This American Life at npr.org, I think. It was a two-parter, and I think it happened in the first part.