16 October 2006

Boys will be "bad apples"

A Marine Lt. Colonel, who is representing an unnamed detainee at Guantánamo, has filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Southern Command alleging that camp guards boast of their regular and routine abuse of their charges. Lt. Col. Colby Vokey attached an affidavit from his assistant, Sgt Heather Cerveny, which claims that she met guards from the camp in a bar and they boasted about the mistreatment given to prisoners.

"From the whole conversation, I understood that striking detainees was a common practice... Everyone in the group laughed at the others' stories of beating detainees."

The guards stopped talking about conditions in the camp when they learned she was part of a defence legal team. Southern Command has indicated it will launch an investigation of they termed "credible allegations" but in the meantime the lawyer and his assistant have been gagged.

The armed services seem to have more bad apples than a dodgy orchard.

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