A file photo of an Afghan prisoner led by two US soldiers

CAIRO, December 14 (IslamOnline.net) – Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the US administration Monday, December 13, of covering up killings and abuses of Afghan prisoners in US detention camps in Afghanistan.

In an open letter to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the rights group said the US is still failing to investigate prisoners' abuses or punish those behind.

"It's time for the United States to come clean about crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan," Brad Adams, Asia division director for the New York-based rights watchdog, said in a press release on the group’s website.

The group warned that the failure to investigate and prosecute abuses had created a "culture of impunity" among some interrogators, and allowed abuse to spread.

"Several military guards and interrogators implicated in earlier abuses in Afghanistan , before the Iraq war, were later sent to work at Abu Ghraib. Some of these personnel have been implicated in new abuses there."  

New Evidence

HRW said it has fresh evidence of two previously unreported deaths of Afghan prisoners in US custody in Afghanistan.

The first new death case was of Jamal Naseer, a soldier from the US-trained Afghan army, who reportedly died after being wrongfully arrested in the Gardez area of eastern Afghanistan and repeatedly beaten by American troops.

The second was of an Afghan detainee who was reported killed by four US military personnel in or before September 2002, the group added.

HRW stressed that the newly uncovered cases highlighted the US government's continuing failure to establish accountability for abuses.

The group also referred to the already reported death of Sher Mohammad Khan, who was arrested September 24 during a raid on his family's home near Khost and died the next day at a US military base.

At that time, the US military said that Khan had died in custody of a heart attack, claiming that a military autopsy had found no evidence of abuse or injury.

Foot-Dragging

The rights watchdog further described as "inadequate" the US investigations into reported abuses.

"The US government is dragging its feet on these investigations," said Adams. 

"The United States has to get serious about prosecuting people implicated in prisoner deaths and mistreatment," Adams added.

The Pentagon launched last summer an internal investigation into reported abuses during the detention operations in Afghanistan in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq.

The abuse of Iraqi prisoners exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the CBS news network published several graphic photos  of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by American soldiers at the Baghdad-based prison.

Since then the scandal has been deepening, exposing more elements and factors about interrogation techniques approved by Rumsfeld, who has been under domestic and international pressure to step down.

In June, the HRW issued a report entitled "The Road To Abu Ghraib" linking the abuse of detainees in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo to the policies adopted by US President George W. Bush in his so-called war on terror.