During the past two years, consistent allegations of brutality and cruelty by US agents against detainees, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, have been presented by Amnesty International and others at the highest levels of the US Government, including the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State.

As with hundreds if not thousands of other detainees, during his whole time in Bagram and Kandahar, Wazir Mohammad was held incommunicado. He was given no opportunity to challenge the lawfulness of his detention. He had no lawyer, no access to his family, and was not brought before any court, including the "competent tribunal" envisaged by the Geneva Conventions to determine prisoner status in time of war. He never met a delegate from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) either. During more than a year in Guantánamo he says he met an ICRC delegate once, on the first day.

The Amnesty letter reviews the deaths in custody. This one is particularly disturbing:

Amnesty International repeats here one of the allegations made in the journal of Staff Sergeant Ivan L. Frederick concerning a death in custody of an Iraqi prisoner in Abu Ghraib: "They stressed him out so bad that the man passed away. They put his body in a body bag and packed him in ice for approximately 24 hours in the shower… The next day the medics came in and put his body on a stretcher, placed a fake IV in his arm and took him away." Frederick stated that the prisoner had never been recorded in the prison system "and therefore never had a number".

The letter ends with a long list of corrective measures to be taken. We won't reprint them here, but everyone should read them.