[D66] A scandal unfolding in Denmark over the transfer of Iraqi prisoners ...

[Henk Elegeert]

Iraqi Torture Scandal Touches Highest Levels of NATO
Thursday 5 January 2012
by: Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout | Report


Former Prime Minister Rasmussen. (Photo: World Economic Forum /
Flickr<http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/2297270516/>
)

A scandal unfolding in Denmark over the transfer of Iraqi prisoners by
Danish forces to Iraq authorities, even as they knew they would be
tortured, threatens to implicate the current Secretary General of NATO
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, formerly prime minister of Denmark from 2001-2009.

The defense ministry in the government of former Prime Minister Rasmussen
is charged with withholding its knowledge of Iraqi torture from legislators
when a copy of a 2004 inspection at Al Makil prison in Basra was sent to
Parliament.

 According to an
article<http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1490616/defence-ministry-kept-abuse-secret/>
last
month in the Danish paper Politiken, portions of the report describing
prisoner abuse were "blacked out," with the reason given that such
"information could harm Danish-Iraq cooperation."

Yet, three months before the prison inspection, in May 2004, during a
debate in the Danish Parliament concerning Iraqi prisoners, according to
the paper Politik & International <http://www.information.dk/288877> (English
translation here<http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.information.dk%2F288877>),
then-Prime Minister Rasmussen said the government would "disclose
information about torture, if the government becomes aware that it occurs."
But evidently, this did not occur.

According to The Copenhagen
Report<http://www.cphpost.dk/news/international/former-defence-minister-be-questioned-torture-trial>,
a Danish English-language daily, the July 2004 investigation by Danish Army
legal adviser Maj. Kurt Borgkvist revealed that "prisoners in Iraqi prisons
had been burned with cigarettes, had their molars crushed and been beaten
around their genitals. Some were even missing fingers, Borgkvist reported."
The resulting report included photographic evidence, which has been
described<http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/krigogkatastrofer/article1410831.ece>
as
"Abu Ghraib-lignende" ("Abu Ghraib-like") by the previous Danish defense
minister.

Rasmussen <http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/who_is_who_56703.htm>,
leader of Denmark's Liberal Party, resigned as prime minister in August
2009 in order to accept a position as NATO's secretary general. Most
recently, he was an outspoken supporter of NATO's military support to the
overthrow of the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Last November, the Liberal Party
and its coalition partners lost power for the first time in almost a
decade, losing to a coalition led by the Social Democrats. Rasmussen was
also a key supporter of the US campaign to go to war in Iraq in 2003,
ironically citing <http://www.stm.dk/_p_11294.html> in a UN address Iraqi
violations of international anti-torture treaties.

The scandal first arose in 2010 from documents released by WikiLeaks in the
"Iraq War Logs <http://mirror.wikileaks.info/wiki/Iraq_War_Logs,_2004-2009/>."
A November 2010
article<http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/11/05/iraqi-torture-known-to-danish-ministry/>
at
Ice News reported how a memo released by WikiLeaks described an inquiry by
"a Danish Defence Ministry official" regarding "what happened at the
American Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq after media reports of torture and abuse
in 2003." Subsequently, "Danish soldiers continued to hand over prisoners
to the facility, however, even after the torture was officially confirmed
several months later."

"'That Denmark didn't intervene in time simply shows that someone must have
stopped the criticism at the political level', said Social Democratic
Defense Spokesman John Dyrby Paulsen. 'That is also why we want an inquiry
into all of this', he added."

An October 2010 story in Politik & International
noted<http://www.information.dk/248544> that
"coalition forces share military reports" and "the Danish military has also
had access to accounts on Iraqi police methods," indicating that all the
coalition forces, Denmark included, "had knowledge of the situation which
was consistent with several highly critical warnings from organizations
such as The International Red Cross and Human Rights Watch."

A government commission into Denmark's involvement in the Iraq war is
expected later this year. The last Danish forces left Iraq last November.

The WikiLeaks logs also revealed that Danish forces in Iraq had been
involved in turning greater numbers of prisoners over to the Iraqis than
the Danish government had previously revealed.

According to a report<http://wikileaks-press.org/iraq-war-logs-retrospective-scandanavia/>
at
WikiLeaks Press, former Danish Defense Minister Søren Gade previously told
the Danish Parliament that Danish troops had only 21 prisoners. But
according to the leaked "War Logs," "the actual number of prisoners taken
in the period at a minimum of 95. Of these, 62 were handed over to Iraqi
authorities, who were well known to be carrying out torture in Iraqi
prisons." In reply, the Defense Ministry "argued that the reason for the
great disparity between the reported number of prisoners was due to the
fact that many of the prisoners had been captured by British troops and
that the Danish troops therefore could not be held accountable."

But recent revelations have seen the number of prisoners actually handed
over has grown from a later admitted 200 to a reported 500 or more. The
higher number surfaced in a memorandum from Defense Chief Gen. Knud Bartels
to the new Defense Minister Nick Hækkerup. (Bartels, himself, has recently
assumed the position of NATO's Military Committee
chairman<http://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1789719>
.)

In a January 2 article<http://www.cphpost.dk/news/international/former-defence-minister-be-questioned-torture-trial>,
The Copenhagen Post reported that Denmark's former Defense Minister Søren
Gade would be called as a witness in an upcoming trial, stemming from a
lawsuit by six Iraqis who were arrested in winter 2004 by Danish forces
supporting the US-led coalition forces in Iraq. The prisoners were turned
over to Iraqi forces and subsequently tortured.

As the Post notes, "According to international law, soldiers may not
deliver prisoners of war to another authority they suspect of mistreating
or torturing prisoners." This international prohibition is written into the
UN Convention Against Torture, which states that no signatory to the treaty
can return or *refoule* any person to a state authority "where there are
substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being
subjected to torture."

In a January 5 editorial<http://www.cphpost.dk/commentary/editorial/editorial-two-wrongs-don%E2%80%99t-make-right-torture-allegations>,
the Post insisted that "ordering soldiers to turn a blind eye to the likely
mistreatment of detainees amounts to a cold-blooded disregard for the
well-being of others." The paper called for the Danish military to
cooperate with any investigations, "even if that means allowing top brass,
former ministers or senior statesmen to be felled in the process."

A further dimension to the scandal concerns not only the number of
prisoners involved, but also the ways the Danes tried to hide their
culpability.

The Bartels letter to Hækkerup also described, according
toPolitiken<http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/ECE1488130/defence-chief-we-broke-the-rules/>,
how "'in a few cases' Iraqi prisoners were illegally handed over to Iraqi
authorities and that in many cases Danish troops avoided defence directives
by letting British troops detain Iraqis during joint missions in order to
avoid responsibility."

The controversy over handing over prisoners to be tortured by Iraqi forces
has not been limited to Denmark. Indeed, after the release of the WikiLeaks
"Iraq War Logs," numerous reports of such transfers of prisoners, despite
knowledge of torture practices, were published in the
British<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/iraq-war-logs-us-iraqi-torture>
 and US<http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/07/31/the-forgotten-history-of-david-petraeus/>
 press.

According to the publication of one of the "Iraq War Logs" by theBureau of
Investigative Journalism<http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/2010/10/27/us-troops-hand-over-detainees-to-interrogation-squad/>,
in at least one case, a US military interrogator threatened a prisoner with
being turned over to the notorious Iraqi Wolf Brigade, "where he would be
subject to all the pain and agony that the wolf battalion is known to exact
upon its detainees."

Similar charges of coalition forces turning prisoners over for torture in
Afghanistan have also raised
controversy<http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/10/11/confess-or-be-ready-to-die-un-report-pummels-us-ally-afghanistan-on-torture/>.
Last September, NATO announced it was suspending many such transfers after
years of reports of torture by Afghan security and military personnel.

The Obama administration has pointedly refused to initiate any
investigations into US torture, while the British government has announced
formation of a government commission to look into the torture charges. The
British commission, which has yet to begin its work, has been
boycotted<http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/08/05/boycott-of-uk-torture-inquiry-by-human-rights-groups-is-official/>
by
human rights groups, who describe the commission as "toothless" and lacking
"meaningful, independent" review.

NATO headquarters did not return a request for comment as of press time. In
addition, attempts to verify details of "Iraq War Logs" information were
stymied by what appears to be an Internet-wide suppression of the formerly
available documents.

`

 ... wordt vervolgt ?

Henk Elegeert
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