Al-Jamadi died while he was suspended by his wrists, his hands cuffed behind his back, a position condemned by human rights groups as torture.[1] A military autopsy declared al-Jamadi's death a homicide. No one has been charged with his death. In 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he had opened a full criminal investigation into al-Jamadi's death.[3] In August 2012, Holder announced that no criminal charges would be brought.[4]
Circumstances of death
Sabrina Harman, posing over the body of Manadel al-Jamadi in November 2003Charles Graner, posing over the body of Manadel al-Jamadi in November 2003
US Navy SEALs had apprehended al-Jamadi following the 27 October 2003 bombing of Red Cross offices in Baghdad that killed 34 people, including one US soldier, and left more than 200 wounded. At approximately 4 a.m. on 4 November 2003, al-Jamadi was led by American forces into the prison, naked from the waist down wearing only a purple shirt and jacket with a green sandbag over his head, while answering questions in both Arabic and English with his handlers.[1][5]
A ghost prisoner (a detainee not logged in the records) said he was passive and nervous "like a scared child", and there was reportedly "no need to get physical with him", although an interrogator soon started shouting at him, demanding to know where weapons were hidden.[5]
On 28 April 2004, photos taken by Jeremy Sivits and some other soldiers present in the prison were made public via CBS News.[6]
The cause of his death was not generally known until 17 February 2005, when it was revealed that he had died after a fruitless half-hour interrogation, during which, contrary to official guidelines, he was suspended from a barred window by his wrists, which were bound behind his back. News reports called al-Jamadi's treatment Palestinian hangingtorture.[7]Associated Press correspondent Seth Hettena reported that 30 minutes after beginning his questioning of the prisoner, the CIA interrogator called for guards to reposition al-Jamadi, who he believed was "playing possum" as he slouched with his arms stretched behind him. But the guards found otherwise:
"After we found out he was dead, they were nervous", Specialist Dennis Stevanus said of the CIA interrogator and translator. "They didn't know what the hell to do."[1]
According to Spc. Jason Kenner, an MP with the 372nd Military Police Company, al-Jamadi was brought to the prison by Navy SEALs in good health; Kenner says he saw that al-Jamadi looked extensively bruised when he was brought out of the showers, dead. According to Kenner a "battle" took place among CIA and US military interrogators over who should dispose of the body.[8]
Captain Donald Reese, company commander of the 372nd Military Police Company, gave testimony about al-Jamadi's death, saying of the dead prisoner, "I was told that, when he was brought in, he was combative, that they took him up to the room and during the interrogation he passed[...]. [The body] was bleeding from the head, nose, mouth."[9] Reese stated that the corpse was locked in a shower room overnight and the next day was fitted with an intravenous drip; he said that this was an attempt to hide what occurred from other inmates. Reese said the body was then autopsied, establishing the cause of death as a blood clot from trauma.
Staff SergeantIvan Frederick wrote an account to his family in November 2003 that interrogators had "stressed him out so bad that the man died. [Prison personnel] put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately twenty-four hours in the shower. [...] The next day the medics came and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away."[10]
Al-Jamadi came to be known by some Abu Ghraib personnel as "The Iceman" and "Mr. Frosty." Others called him "Bernie," a reference to the movie Weekend at Bernie's in which a dead body is treated as if still alive.[11]
Investigation
In August 2007, Thomas Pappas, the most senior officer present during the interrogation and time of death, was granted immunity in return for his testimony at the court martial of his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan, who was acquitted.[12] In 2011, John Durham, Republican-appointed U.S. Attorney from Connecticut tasked with probing the CIA – had begun calling witnesses before a secret federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, looking into, among other things, the death of al-Jamadi.[13]
