Salon Challenges NY Times Identification of Hooded Detainee
Here's the backdrop to the story about the Abu Ghriab prisoner turned prisoner's rights activist from Saturday's New York Times.
The New York Times reports today that Salon is challenging its identification of Ali Shalal Qaissi as the hooded detainee standing on a box hooked up to electricodes. From the Times:
On Monday, Chris Grey, chief spokesman for the [Army's criminal] investigations unit, asked about the challenge, confirmed to The Times in an e-mail message: "We have had several detainees claim they were the person depicted in the photograph in question. Our investigation indicates that the person you have is not the detainee who was depicted in the photograph released in connection with the Abu Ghraib investigation.
"As always, we will take this information into consideration in the course of our investigative duties to determine if there is any credibility to the person's allegations."
The man identified by The Times, Ali Shalal Qaissi, often called Haj Ali, was also interviewed and described as the hooded man forced to stand on a box attached to electric wires in an article in Vanity Fair and a broadcast on PBS.
Quaissi still tells the Times he's the man in the photo. Salon says otherwise.
Army documents obtained by Salon contradict the Times' account. An official report by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) concluded that the photo the Times said showed Qaissi actually showed another detainee, named Saad, whose full name is being withheld by Salon to protect his identity. According to the official report, this second detainee was nicknamed "Gilligan" by military police at Abu Ghraib.
I won't be surprised if it turns out there was more than one prisoner subjected to the prison guards' abhorrent tactic.
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