Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan

Nagem Sadoon Hatab

Nagem Sadoon Hatab, a 52-year-old Iraqi, was killed in U.S. custody at a Marine-run temporary holding camp close to Nasiriyah. Soon after his arrival at the camp in June 2003, a number of Marines beat Hatab, including allegedly “karate-kicking” him while he stood handcuffed and hooded. A day later, Hatab reportedly developed severe diarrhea, and was covered in feces. Once U.S. forces discovered his condition, Hatab was stripped and examined by a medic, who thought that Hatab might be faking sickness. At the base commander’s order, a clerk with no training in handling prisoners dragged Hatab by his neck to an outdoor holding area, to make room for a new prisoner.
           
The clerk later testified to the ease with which he was able to drag the prisoner: Hatab’s body, covered by sweat and his own feces, slid over the sand. Hatab was then left on the ground, uncovered and exposed in the heat of the sun. He was found dead sometime after midnight. A U.S. Army medical examiner’s autopsy of Hatab found that he had died of strangulation – a victim of homicide. The autopsy also found that six of Hatab’s ribs were broken and his back, buttocks, legs and knees covered with bruises.
           
The guards at the detention center to which Hatab had been brought were ill-prepared for their duty at best. The previous commander of the facility, Major William Vickers, would later testify that none of the approximately 30 Marines at the camp had been trained to run a jail before their assignment: “Not then or even after.” Most were reservists and according to Major Vickers’ testimony, the Marines, members of the 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, were assigned to the guard role after Army and other Marine units refused it. The base commander at the time, Major Clarke Paulus, had been in that position for a week before Hatab’s death, and had spent only a day observing the prison operations before taking command. His predecessor, Major Vickers, added that the camp had originally been designated a temporary holding facility, where Marines would interrogate prisoners for a day or two before their release or transfer. Instead, prisoners were kept for longer, resulting in overcrowding and a strain on guards.
           
The treatment of Hatab’s body did not improve after his death. A Navy surgeon, Dr. Ray Santos, testified that when Hatab’s body arrived at the morgue: “It kept slipping from my hands so I did drop it several times.” The U.S. Army Medical Examiner, Colonel Kathleen Ingwersen, who performed the autopsy, reportedly acknowledged that Hatab’s body had undergone decomposition because it was stored in an unrefrigerated drawer before the autopsy. In fact, testimony at a later court martial indicated that a container of Hatab’s internal organs was left exposed on an airport tarmac for hours; in the blistering Iraqi heat, the organs were destroyed. Hatab’s ribcage and part of his larynx were later found in medical labs in Washington, D.C. and Germany, due to what the Medical Examiner, Colonel Ingwersen, described as a “miscommunication” with her assistant. Hatab’s hyoid bone – a U-shaped throat bone located at the base of the tongue – was never found, and Colonel Ingwersen testified that she couldn’t recall whether she removed the bone from the body during the autopsy or not. The bone was a key piece of evidence, because it supported the Army Medical Examiner’s finding that Hatab died of strangulation.
Although eight Marines were initially charged in the case, only two were actually court-martialed. Major Paulus, who ordered Hatab dragged by his neck and permitted him to lie untreated in the sun, was originally charged with a number of offenses, including negligent homicide, while Sergeant Gary P. Pittman was charged with five counts of assault for beating prisoners (including Hatab) and two counts of dereliction of duty. Neither was sentenced to any prison time, however, in part because of the lax handling of the medical evidence. The judge in the court martial proceedings, Colonel Robert Chester, ruled that the autopsy findings and other medical evidence – evidence which was also Hatab’s remains – could not be considered, because it had been lost or destroyed and thus could not be examined by the defense. The judge’s decision eliminated the possibility that prosecutors could win conviction on the most serious charges they had brought. In addition, at Sergeant Pittman’s court martial, prosecutors acknowledged that the military had either lost or destroyed photos of Hatab being interrogated in the days before his death.

As a result, prosecutors were unable to win conviction on any charges relating to culpability for Hatab’s death: Paulus was convicted of dereliction of duty and maltreatment for ordering a subordinate to drag Hatab by the neck, and for allowing Hatab to remain unmonitored in the sun. Sergeant Pittman was acquitted of abusing Hatab, though he was sentenced for assaulting other detainees. Charges against Lance Corporal Christian Hernandez (who dragged Hatab by the neck), including negligent homicide, were dropped, and the cases against the other Marines similarly did not proceed to trial. One Marine, William Roy, accepted a reduction in rank from a lance corporal to a private first class in exchange for his testimony. But because the demotion was a non-judicial punishment, and the basis for it is not public, the precise contours of his culpability remain unclear.

Source: Command's Responsibility: Detainee Deaths in U.S. Custody in Iraq and Afghanistan (2006)