Email from a DOS Official to DOJ Officials. The email includes a New York Times article, which discusses the Justice Department's investigation into the CIA and their contractors for their possible involvement in the death of three detainees, one death in Afghanistan and two in Iraq. CIA Officials told reporters that in November 2003 a detainee at Abu Ghraib died while being questioned by a CIA officer and a Linguist, who was hired by the CIA as a contractor. The CIA employees alleged that they did not touch the detainee, General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, they stated that Mr. Mowhoush simply 'slumped over' during the interview. In another incident, in June 2003, a detainee in Afghanistan died during questioning by an independent CIA contractor.
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RELEASED IN PART
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B5 .
Nahmias, David
From: DolanJA@state.gov
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 10:34 AM
To: Nahmias, David; Philbin, Patrick
Subject: NYT piece on investigations into role of CIA and other employees/ contractors
B5
May 6, 2004
THE AGENCY
U.S. Examines Role of C.I.A. and Employees in
Iraq Deaths
By DAVID JOHNSTON and NEIL A. LEWIS
ASHINGTON, May 5 - The Justice Department is
examining the involvement of Central Intelligence
Agency officers and contract employees in three
suspicious deaths of detainees, two in Iraq and one
in Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials
said Wednesday.
One of the victims of suspected abuse was an
Iraqi major general in the Republican Guard, who
died in November 2003, several days after he was
questioned at an interrogation center in western
Iraq by C.I.A. officers, according to a senior lLw
enforcement official. The official said the Pentagon
had identified the Iraqi officer as Abid Hamid
Mohush.
•
On Wednesday, a C.I.A. official outlined the
cases in which agency employees or contractors are
involved but declined to identify any of the agency
employees. The official would not name the victims
or provide details•on grounds that the cases were
under investigation }3. the agency's inspector
),
general, who has shared investigative findings with
the Justice Department.
In November 2003, the official said, a
detainee at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad died,
apparently as he was being questioned by a C.I.A.
officer and a linguist who was hired by the agency
as a contractor. In that case, the detainee had been
turned over to intelligence authorities by Navy
Seals, whose spokesman on Wednesday denied
mistreatment of the prisoner. The agency official
said the detainee was not touched, but "slumped
over" during the interrogation. The C.I.A. officers
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE
who interviewed General Mohush also denied
REVIEW AUTHORITY: FRANK E SCHMELZER
mistreating him.
DATE/CASE ID: 08 OCT 2004 200403882
In a third case, in June 2003, a detainee in
Afghanistan died during questioning by an
independent contractor working for the C.I.A., a
case in which the agency official did not rule out
mistreatment.
fie) /00
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•
UNCLASSIFIED
Agency officials briefed the Senate
Intelligence Committee in closed session on
Wednesday about the prisoner abuse issue. Senator
Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican and the committee
chairman, said in a statement to reporters, "So far
there appears to be no evidence of intelligence
personnel that directed any of the abuses, but the
investigation does continue."
The Justice Department inquiry, which has
focused first on what laws may have been violated,
means C.I.A. employees or contractors may be
• prosecuted in civilian courts. Until now, only the
military was known to be investigating the deaths
and degrading treatment of detainees in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Another area of possible wrongdoing by the
agency disclosed Wednesday relates to requests by
C.I.A. personnel to military authorities at Abu
Ghraib prison to hold suspects without listing them
on the prison's rolls, according to newly available
passages of an internal military report on abuses in
Iraqi prisons.
The practice was routine, according to a
passage in the report by Maj. Gen. Antonio M.
Taguba. The passage was included in an unedited
version of the report that circulated on Wednesday
on several Web sites; previous edited versions of
the report omitted any reference to withholding
names from prison rolls.
Detainees kept off the prisoner roster at Abu
Ghraib were referred to as "ghost detainees," the
report said. In one instance, the report found, a
group of six to eight prisoners "was moved around
within the facility to hide them from a visiting
International Committee of the Red Cross survey
team."
A C.I.A. official said the agency had
discontinued such practices but said that the Geneva
Conventions allowed a delay in the identification of
prisoners to avoid disclosing their whereabouts to
an enemy.
The Justice Department's jurisdiction over'
agency employees stems from federal statutes, like
one cited by law enforcement officials, which make
it a crime for Americans acting under government
authority to "inflict severe physical or mental pain
or suffering upon another person under his custody
or control."
Under the torture statute, a person convicted
• of killing someone by torture could face a sentence
of death or life in prison. Federal civil rights law
might also be applied, the officials said.
The Justice Department's jurisdiction over
independent contractors stems from the Military
Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, a four-year-old
law, untested in court, that gives federal courts
jurisdiction over any crimes that may be committed
by civilian contractors working with the military
UNCLASSIFIED
DOS-000195
•
abroad.
"tINCLASSIFIED
Contractors are hired under an arrangement
that assures them they will not be prosecuted under
Iraqi law, he said. They are also, because of
Supreme Court rulings, not held accountable to the
Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company 1
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DOS-000196