CIA Contractor Guilty in Beating of Detainee

WASHINGTON —  A civilian CIA contractor accused of beating an Afghan detainee who later died in custody was found guilty of assault charges Thursday, becoming the first person affiliated with the spy agency to be convicted in a post-Sept. 11 abuse case.

David A. Passaro, a 40-year-old former police officer sent by the CIA to Afghanistan, was accused of beating Abdul Wali with a flashlight and kicking him during an interrogation in 2003. Wali, suspected of firing rockets at a U.S. military base, died from his wounds.

The jury found Passaro, a former Army Special Forces soldier, guilty of felony assault and three misdemeanors. Prosecutors had chosen not to charge him with murder.

Although he could face as much as 11 1/2 years in prison, under federal sentencing guidelines he will probably serve from two to four years.

When he was a police officer in Hartford, Conn., in the early 1990s, Passaro was found guilty of a misdemeanor charge of beating a man, which could increase his prison time.

Witnesses at the trial in Raleigh, N.C., testified that Passaro had said that as a CIA contractor he was allowed to use interrogation techniques that soldiers were not.

Prosecutors argued that CIA contractors were not allowed to use physical force without the approval of their superiors, and that Passaro was not authorized to use physical techniques.

Passaro’s defense lawyers argued that top officials had allowed tougher interrogation techniques, but much of that line of questioning was disallowed by the judge.

At least 20 other cases involving CIA agents or military contractors have been referred to the Department of Justice, human rights organizations said, adding that they thought it increasingly unlikely that anyone would be indicted in those cases.

“We should applaud the verdict and applaud the fact that the Justice Department chose to prosecute,” said Priti Patel, a lawyer at Human Rights First who observed the trial. “But there are larger issues the trial raises. If the U.S. is serious about ending the abuse of detainees, the CIA needs to issue clear guidance to its agents and contractors.”

In an e-mail message to CIA employees, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the agency’s director, criticized Passaro’s actions and said they were inconsistent with the “normal conduct of CIA officers and contractors.”

“I think it is very important for all of us to bear in mind that Passaro’s actions were unlawful, reprehensible and neither authorized nor condoned by the agency,” Hayden wrote.

But human rights organizations said Thursday that prosecutors had failed to hold high-level CIA and military officers accountable, focusing instead on soldiers and operatives.

“They are just investigating the goons and the muscle; they are not investigating the brains,” said John Sifton, a lawyer at Human Rights Watch.

Although Passaro’s case marked the first trial and conviction of a CIA contractor, about 100 military service members have been court-martialed in 600 abuse investigations since the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Defense Department said.

Defense officials were unable to provide the number of service members who had been convicted but said 250 had been “held accountable,” a number that includes administrative punishments. Army officials said 85 soldiers had been court-martialed in abuse cases.

Sifton said his organization had tracked 54 convictions of military service members in courts-martial. Sifton said three of the convictions involved officers, and 10 had resulted in more than a year of jail time.

“If they call that accountability -- no way,” Sifton said. “You are talking about people who have done serious abuses, and they get off with a slap on the wrist.”

The most high-profile military abuse cases were the Abu Ghraib trials. Eleven soldiers have been convicted of charges stemming from rampant abuses at the U.S.-run prison outside Baghdad.

Human rights organizations have highlighted three other detainee deaths in Iraq in which CIA employees may have been involved. But no agency employee or contractor has been indicted in those cases.

In May 2005, a Navy SEAL was acquitted of charges connected to the death of Manadel Jamadi at Abu Ghraib prison in November 2003.

In the trial, the sailor’s defense lawyers raised questions about the role of CIA interrogators in the death of the detainee. CIA officials said they referred the investigation of that case to the Department of Justice, although no indictments have been made public.

Passaro was charged under a provision of the Patriot Act that allows U.S. citizens accused of crimes at military instillations to be prosecuted in U.S. federal courts.

Prosecutors painted a picture of a man out of control. In their closing arguments, they said Passaro beat Wali for 48 hours.

They called soldiers to the stand who had guarded Wali. The soldiers testified that Passaro hit Wali when the prisoner said he did not know anything, and that Passaro ordered them to keep Wali standing in stressful positions so he couldn’t sleep.

One soldier, 2nd Lt. David Allen, testified that he saw Passaro kick Wali. Other soldiers testified that after the beating, Wali used hand signals to ask guards to shoot him.

Defense lawyers argued that Passaro became a scapegoat after Wali’s death. They said that Passaro was a former Special Forces medic who wanted to serve his country and that he did not act improperly.

Wali was a terrorist who had attacked U.S. soldiers by firing rockets at the base near Asadabad, Afghanistan, defense lawyer Joseph Gilbert said.

Defense and prosecution experts differed on what caused Wali’s death and whether his injuries were the result of a beating.

No autopsy was done because Wali’s father objected, a CIA investigator testified.

Sifton, the Human Rights Watch lawyer, said that even if prosecutors could not prove that Passaro had killed Wali, they should have charged him with torture.

“There was clear evidence in the case that Passaro didn’t just beat the guy, but that he presided over a regime of abuse,” Sifton said. “The bottom line is this guy is going to get off with two to four years for a torture death. That is not accountability.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.