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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=2012523207 Even as the CIA saluted its slain colleague, the first American fatality in Afghanistan, "American hero" Johnny ‘Mike’ Spann, who died in the prison revolt, British journalists in Mazar-i-Sharif have begun reporting that Spann was less an innocent victim than the one who allegedly provoked the riot. With allegations of "war crimes" against the US and UK coming in thick and fast for ignoring the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Commisioner, Mary Robinson, has echoed Kate Allen, director of the London-based Amnesty International in calling for an urgent inquiry. Amnesty has said it is willing to send an observer to Afghanistan to monitor an inquiry. On Wednesday night, the BBC’s authoritative domestic television programme Newsnight interviewed Oliver August, correspondent for The Times, London, in Mazar-i-Sharif, who said that Spann and his CIA colleague, Dave, were thought to have set off the violence by aggressively interrogating foreign Taliban prisoners and asking, "Why did you come to Afghanistan?". August said their questions were answered by one prisoner jumping forward and announcing, "We’re here to kill you". The Guardian’s Mazar-i-Sharif correspondent said the CIA "operatives had apparently failed on entering the fort to observe the first rule of espionage: keep a low profile". The Times’s August said Spann subsequently pulled his gun and his CIA colleague shot three prisoners dead in cold blood before losing control over the situation. Spann was then "kicked, beaten and bitten to death," the journalists said, in an account of the ferocity of the violence that lasted four days, leaving more than 500 people dead and the fort littered with "bodies, shrapnel and shell casings". ===================================================================== The operative, Johnny Michael Spann, was a 32-year-old former Marine captain who served in the Directorate of Operations (DO), the agency's clandestine espionage arm. On detail in Afghanistan, he was killed by mutinous Taliban prisoners at the Qala Jangi fortress who reportedly resented his aggressive behaviour, but neither the administration not the CIA made any reference to the nature of the incident while celebrating him as an "American hero." <A HREF="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/HomeRightBanner.htm";>Click here: The Times of India</A> ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
