The Corpse Was Packed In Ice & Bound

Fourteenth of 25 excerpts from The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer:

The last night of the life of Manadel al-Jamadi, whose iced corpse became one of the more harrowing images of the Abu Ghraib scandal, began at home -- a small apartment in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad. It ended before dawn in a cell in Abu Ghraib, the notorious Iraqi prison where Saddam Hussein had tortured his political enemies. . . .

The Associated Press quoted an expert who described the position in which Jamadi died as a form of torture known as "Palestinian hanging," in which a prisoner whose hands are secured behind his back is suspended by this arms.

. . . CIA personnel ordered that Jamadi's body be kept in the shower room until the next morning. The corpse was packed in ice and bound with tape, apparently in an attempt to slow its decomposition. The ice was already melting when Specialist Sabrina Harman posed for pictures while stooping over the corpse, smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign. The next day, a medic inserted an IV in Jamadi's arm, put the body on a stretcher, and took it out of the prison as if Jamadi were merely ill, ostensibly as to "not upset the other detainees." A military-intelligence officer later recounted that a local taxi driver was paid to take away Jamadi's body. CIA officials took with them the bloodied hood that had covered Jamadi's head; it was later thrown away. "They destroyed evidence, and failed to preserve the scene of the crime," . . . the lawyer for one of the Navy SEALs said.

Copyright 2008 by Jane Mayer. All Rights Reserved