WSJ.com - CBS Asks Why U.S. Imprisons Its Iraqi Hire
For 25-year-old CBS cameraman Abdul Amir Younes Hussein, being shot and wounded by American forces in Iraq was just the beginning.
On April 5, Mr. Hussein, a freelancer employed by the network in the northern city of Mosul, went to the scene of a car bombing to film the aftermath. He was standing near an armed insurgent when U.S. forces opened fire, killing the militant and wounding him lightly. The military released a statement that expressed regret about the incident and said it was under investigation.
Three days later, the military released a second statement saying that Mr. Hussein had been “detained for alleged insurgent activity” and there was probable cause to believe he posed “an imperative threat to coalition forces.”
or else, just another way we are trying to 'win hearts and mind' and failing miserably. I suppose under Republican occupation (both at home and abroad), rules of law only apply sometimes. If you don't fit the profile, laws are malleable, and not in your favour. Judicial activism at its worst, in other words.
“The cameraman has now been detained for more than five months, and no one concerned has been informed of the evidence against him,” the network said in a statement yesterday. “We continue to request that information and hope it will be provided and his status be decided, one way or another, in a fair and timely manner.”..The military defends its handling of the case and says Mr. Hussein remains under suspicion. The journalist has been detained “based on information that he was affiliated with anti-Iraqi and anti-coalition forces and engaged in anti-coalition activity,” Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a military spokesman, said in a statement. He said the activity included “recruiting and inciting Iraqi nationals to violence against coalition forces and participating in attacks against coalition forces.”
Mr. Hussein's story illustrates the difficulty of reporting in Iraq. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit organization, describes the country “as the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist,” noting that 23 journalists were killed there last year and an additional 15 have died so far this year. Because the dangers to Westerners are so great, foreign media outlets frequently rely on Iraqis hired locally to supplement their staff reporting. The Iraqis travel around the country far more than the Westerners and are routinely targeted by insurgents or involved in accidental shootings by Americans. On June 30, for instance, Knight Ridder reporter Yasser Salihee was killed on his day off by a U.S. Army sniper.
Western media organizations increasingly complain that their Iraqi hires are routinely detained by the U.S. military without charges. In addition to Mr. Hussein, at least four Iraqi journalists -- including two cameramen for the Reuters news agency -- remain in American custody. In an interview yesterday with Reuters, Iraqi Justice Minister Abdul Hussein Shandal criticized such detentions and said journalists should be able to film attacks and interview insurgents without fear of being arrested.
and then CBS admits pushing the young man where he didn't want to go...
CBS describes Mr. Hussein as a timid young man who was so afraid of coming into contact with insurgents that he was warned at least once that he would be fired unless he went into the field more often. The network says it found Mr. Hussein through its local correspondent in Tikrit, an employee who had been on its payroll for two years. It says Mr. Hussein was a graduate of Mosul University where he belonged to a student group that organized a reception for Mosul's new governor that was funded with American money and attended by several U.S. military officers.
he military's reversal of its initial description of Mr. Hussein's shooting was the first of several occasions it changed course in its handling of the journalist, according to both the military and CBS News. After its public statement describing Mr. Hussein as a security threat, the military told CBS News that it would allow network employees to meet with him and recover the camera and videotape seized from him after the shooting, the network says. CBS immediately dispatched London-based producer Randall Joyce, who arrived at an American base in Mosul on April 15.During their meetings with the CBS News producer, however, military officials refused to say where Mr. Hussein was being held or who was interrogating him, the network says. They told Mr. Joyce that he couldn't meet with Mr. Hussein on security grounds, and couldn't recover the camera or duplicate the videotape because they were evidence, the network says. When he asked for an update on Mr. Hussein's health, the military declined, citing a domestic U.S. law barring the government from releasing health information on American citizens, according to the network.
Afterward, the military moved Mr. Hussein to Abu Ghraib prison but said it would allow CBS to submit evidence to a military panel that would decide during a July hearing whether to keep Mr. Hussein in custody or release him, according to CBS News. The network gathered evidence -- including affidavits from a relative that works as an Iraqi police officer and from other Iraqi journalists in Mosul -- asserting that Mr. Hussein was at his university at the time of the attack, didn't arrive at the scene of the April 5 bombing until almost 30 minutes after the explosion, and had no known ties to the insurgents. It sent its findings to the military, but the hearing was canceled and the military told the network that it was instead submitting Mr. Hussein's case to the Iraqi legal system for prosecution.
In his statement, Lt. Col. Rudisill said the hearing wasn't held because the panel's attorney “found there was sufficient admissible evidence to successfully prosecute Mr. Hussein for unlawful possession of explosives and aiding and abetting armed attacks against coalition forces.”
The Iraqis declined to prosecute, but instead of releasing Mr. Hussein the military took him back into its own custody, where he has remained.
In a letter to CBS News reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes said the Iraqis' decision not to prosecute didn't necessarily mean Mr. Hussein would be freed. He noted that the military panel used both classified and unclassified information, while the Iraqi legal system based its decision solely on the unclassified information that could be presented in open court. “Such a determination [by the Iraqis] does not preclude the possibility that sufficient evidence exists ... to conclude that Mr. Hussein should continue to be detained for imperative reasons of security,” he wrote.
According to a Coalition Provisional Authority decree still legally binding in Iraq, captives like Mr. Hussein must have their detentions formally reviewed by the Combined Review and Release Board within six months. Since Mr. Hussein was arrested in early April, the review by the panel -- which includes three American military officers and a total of six representatives of the Iraqi ministries of Justice, Interior and Human Rights -- must be held by early October.
In Mr. Hussein's case, the questions about innocence or involvement in insurgent activity are supposed to be answered today during the scheduled meeting of the panel, which will take place behind closed doors in Baghdad without the presence of Mr. Hussein, his Iraqi attorney, or representatives of CBS News. Depending on the panel's determination, he will either be released or consigned to potentially indefinite captivity. CBS News says it plans to pay Mr. Hussein's salary to his family as long as he remains in custody.
Tags: Iraq, /judicial_activism, /Know your rights
