Taxi to the Dark Side

The procedures adopted to try Hamdan also violate the Geneva Conventions. The D. C. Circuit dismissed Hamdans challenge in this regard on the grounds, inter alia, that the Conventions are not judicially enforceable and that, in any event, Hamdan is not entitled to their protections. Neither of these grounds is persuasive... Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, decided by the United States Supreme Court on June 29, 2006

On December first, 2002 ...

Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver, took three passengers for a ride.

He never returned home.

TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] When the sun started to go down, the sand started blowing.

It was like a big dust bowl. And I'm thinking,

"Boy, is it gonna be like this every night?"

[PFC. Damien Corsetti, Mil-Intel, Bagram] I remember walking in to there for the first time:

The smell...the smell is the first thing that hits you,

And being from D.C., if you've ever been to the National Zoo

When you walk into the elephant house there, that's the best way to describe it.

There were a few of us that lived in the prison, and I was one of them.

They built it up to be a big, scary place to the prisoners.

After the invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. Forces occupied Bagram,

An old Soviet airbase as a place to collect and interrogate thousands of detainees

captured throughout Afgan and Pakistan.

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] These were suspected Taliban.

They were being caught by Special Forces throughout the countryside, brought to Bagram to be held,

interrogated, determined if they were a high-value prisoner.

[SGT. Anthony Morden, Mil-Pol, Bagram] These were not nice people at all.

They were very evil people who, you know, definitely had violent intentions.

On December 5, 2002 ...

Dilawar, the taxi driver, was brought to Bagram.

He was designed a PUC: Person Under Control, No. 421.

[SGT. Anthony Morden, Mil-Pol, Bagram] He was something to do with a trigger man for a rocket attack.

And that's about all I know.

Five days after his arrival, he was dead.

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] I would say this was around about 05:00 in the morning.

As I walked by Dilawar...I think that's his name, Dilawar

Walked by Dilawar's cell,

I noticed that he was just kind of hanging there with his head down.

But he was being too still to be, you know, just hanging there and sleep.

[SGT. Anthony Morden, Mil-Pol, Bagram] SGT. Curtis opened up the door, and we went in.

He was unresponsive. And we started CPR.

[PFC. Willie Brand, Mil-Pol, Bagram] I was downstairs in general population.

Then I heard a call come in asking for Cammack to come upstairs.

He was a medic, and we carried him downstairs on a stretcher.

And the Cammack was still on top of him while we're carrying him down, still trying to get him back going,

all the way down the stairs. We got him through the front door and they kept working on him,

kept working on him until the doctor got there and pronounced him dead.

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] I don't know if it was an injury that was aggravated by something,

or whether he was just sick coming in.

[PFC. Damien Corsetti, Mil-Intel, Bagram & Abu Ghraib] They are very frail people,

And I was surprised that it had taken that long for one of them to die in our custody.

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] There was a definite sense of concern, because he was the second one.

Just a week before Dilawar's death, another detainee at Bagram had died.

[SGT. Thomas Curtis, Mil-Pol, Bagram] You know, you wonder: Is this something we did?

Or did somebody kill him or something? But I just didn't know.

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