Afghan detainees tortured in prison, U.N. says
KABUL — Prisoners handed over by international forces to Afghan custody are being subjected to “systematic’’ torture by Afghan interrogators seeking intelligence in the war against the Taliban, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
The report portrayed prisoner abuse by Afghan authorities on a scale far wider than previously known.sacs louis vuitton
It is bound to complicate American efforts to hand over increasing responsibilities to Afghan forces as U.S. troops begin a steady drawdown from Afghanistan.
The findings included the use of brutal beatings and electric shock at several Afghan-run centers to wrest confessions from detainees. The account, based on interviews with detainees conducted as recently as August, raises questions about whether U.S. officials knew or should have known about the abuses involving prisoners turned over to the Afghans.
George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, said the United States is reviewing the “serious allegations” in the U.N. report. The Afghan government challenged the findings, saying that some depictions were “not close to reality,’’ but it also pledged to investigate the allegations of torture and abuse.
“Maybe there are deficiencies with a country stricken by war and a wave of suicide attacks and other terroristic crimes, we do not claim perfection and that we are doing things 100% in accordance with how things should be,” the Afghan government wrote in its response to the U.N. findings, which was included as an annex to the report.
The report revealed serious deficiencies in the Afghan security institutions, primarily the intelligence agency known as the National Directorate for Security (NDS) and the Afghan National Police, organizations that will only gain more responsibility as the U.S. military begins its withdrawal from Afghanistan this year.
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