From Just World News:
Passaro indictment: why him?
You've probably read about David Passaro, the 38-year-old former contract employee for the CIA in Afghanistan who was charged Thursday with assaulting a prisoner during three days of interrogation there and the prisoner then died...
Have you asked yourself why David Passaro, of all the possible number of people involved in just such incidents in Afghanistan--where the number of deaths under interrogation goes into, I believe, at least the double digits--gets indicted?
Today, an excellently researched and reported story in the WaPo by Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest gives one possible answer.
You see, the person killed in that incident was a man called Abdul Wali who last June 21 voluntarily gave himself up for questioning at the CIA/Special Forces base at Asadabad--and he had been accompanied to the base by the Hyder Akbar, the 18-year-old, US-eduacted son of a nearby, US-installed provincial governor, Sayed Fazl Akbar.
Schmidt and Priest explain further that:
Portions of a tape-recorded diary that Hyder Akbar kept during a visit with his father
were played Dec. 12 on National Public Radio.
Sayed Fazl Akbar, speaking into his son's tape recorder, said he asked the Americans to hold off using military force to capture Wali, who he said "had been on the Americans' and the coalition force's most-wanted list for cooperating with terrorists or being a terrorist." Wali was deeply fearful of turning himself in to the Americans, said the elder Akbar, so Akbar sent his son to go with him "as a sign of trust."
Said Hyder Akbar: "So I took him to the Americans. And, like, they're asking him where he was 14 days ago on the night of the three rockets. And this guy, like, don't have calendars, you know? . . . I just put my hand on his shoulder and I let him know: 'Just say the truth. Nothing is going to happen if you just say the truth.' And he was absolutely petrified, and he could barely whisper the okay."
Three days later, Hyder Akbar and his father returned to Asadabad to check on Wali. A translator named Steve and another American named Dave sat down with them, according to Hyder Akbar, and said, "Unfortunately, Abdul Wali passed away." Hyder Akbar said: "My jaw dropped. It's like 'Oh, my God.' . . .
Okay, I just went to the NPR website and dropped $4.95 to download the text of the segment of 'Morning Edition' that featured "Hyder Akbar's audio diary". And I'll give you some (strictly 'fair use'!) excerpts from it later on.
But it does certainly occur to me that, given the domestic-Afghan political angle on this whole story, the administration may well have felt virtually obliged--in this case, given Abdul Wali's relationship with provincial governor Akbar--to take some action against his killers.
