DOJ opens criminal probe of CIA detainee deaths

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department inquiry into CIA interrogations of terrorist detainees has led to a full criminal investigation into the deaths of two people while they were in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Thursday.

The attorney general said that he accepted the recommendation of a federal prosecutor, John Durham, who since August 2009 has conducted an inquiry into CIA interrogation practices during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

Holder said Thursday that no charges would be brought against any CIA personnel involved in so-called "enhanced interrogations" -- the controversial treatment of detainees, including waterboarding, that many critics say constituted torture. Because the Justice Department issued opinions to the contrary, the wide-reaching probes into those techniques will be dropped, reports CBS News correspondent David Martin.

New scrutiny of CIA torture, botched rendition

But Holder allowed the more limited investigation recommended by Durham to continue. Holder said Durham looked at the treatment of 101 detainees in U.S. custody since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and concluded that only these two deaths warranted criminal investigation. Holder said Durham found some of the 101 had never been held by the CIA.

Holder did not identify the two death cases. But former and current U.S. officials who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation said Durham was looking at the deaths of Gul Rahman and Manadel al-Jamadi.

Rahman was captured in 2002 in Pakistan and held at a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan known as the salt lick. Hosed down and left in an unheated cell overnight, Rahman died of hypothermia in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002. He was suspected of links to the terrorist group al Qaeda. Rahman is the only detainee known to have died in a CIA-run prison.

Al-Jamadi died in 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The death has been known to the public for years and a military autopsy declared al-Jamadi's death a homicide.

Al-Jamadi died in 2003 and later became known as the Iceman because his body was packed in ice in an apparent attempt to cover up his death, Martin reports. A suspected terrorist, al-Jamadi was injured during his capture by navy seals but died in the custody of a CIA interrogator, who is now under investigation by a federal grand jury.

This month, a former Abu Ghraib prison guard at the time of al-Jamadi's death, Lynndie England, was ordered to testify in a grand jury probe in Alexandria, Virginia. A subpoena signed by Durham for England's appearance says her testimony is needed in a probe of federal criminal laws involving war crimes, torture and other offenses. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the subpoena.

England, an Army reservist serving as a military policeman at Abu Ghraib, was among 11 soldiers found guilty of wrongdoing in the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004. Photographs showed England holding a restraint around a man's neck, and giving a thumbs-up and pointing at the genitals of naked, hooded men, a cigarette dangling from her mouth.

England's attorney, Roy Hardy, said that England testified along with former MPs Chip Frederick and Sabrina Harman before the grand jury earlier this month.

Another person who testified told the AP that prosecutors asked about a hood placed over al-Jamadi's head that later disappeared and who shackled al-Jamadi's arms behind his back and bound them to a barred window. This witness requested anonymity to avoid being connected publicly with the case.

On his last day as CIA director, Leon Panetta emphasized the wide scope of Durham's preliminary review.

"After extensive examination of more than 100 instances in which CIA had contact or was alleged to have had contact with terrorist detainees," the prosecutor "has determined that no further law enforcement action is appropriate in all but two discrete cases," Panetta, who will be sworn in Friday as the new defense secretary, said in a statement.

Panetta added that "both cases were previously reviewed by career federal prosecutors who subsequently declined prosecution."

"I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us," Panetta said. "We are now finally about to close this chapter of our agency's history."

Al-Jamadi amd Rahman were two of the suspected terrorists allegedly held by the CIA in secret prisons. Several of those prisoners were questioned using what the Bush administration called "enhanced interrogation techniques," including three senior al Qaeda operatives who were subjected to waterboarding.

Ironically, the two prisoners who died were never singled out for special interrogation and apparently died of simple abuse or neglect, Martin reports.

Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he welcomes the Justice Department's decision to end criminal investigations "against the vast majority of CIA interrogators."

However, the American Civil Liberties Union faulted Durham's review as failing to scrutinize senior officials.

"Durham's mandate was far too narrow," said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "Durham was tasked principally with investigating interrogations that went beyond the bounds set by the Justice Department. However, the central problem was not with interrogators who disobeyed orders, but with senior officials who authorized a program of torture."

The outlines of al-Jamadi's death have long been known.

A CIA officer at Abu Ghraib was sanctioned for not having a doctor examine al-Jamadi when he arrived at the prison badly injured from a struggle with Navy SEALs.

That officer, whom the AP is identifying only as Steve because he worked undercover, was a focus of the CIA's internal investigation. Steve ran the detainee exploitation cell at Abu Ghraib and had done similar work with the agency in Afghanistan. Steve later retired from the CIA. The AP also has identified another CIA officer with the agency's Special Activities Division connected to al-Jamadi's death. He remains undercover.

Former CIA officials say Rahman was acting as a conduit between militant Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and al Qaeda. Hekmatyar's insurgent group is believed to be allied with al Qaeda. The former officials said the CIA had been tracking Rahman's cell phone at the time of his Oct. 29, 2002, capture and were hoping the suspected militant would provide information about Hekmatyar's whereabouts.