15 October 2004	Friday	29 Shaban 1425

WASHINGTON, Oct 14: Army criminal investigators have recommended that the service consider disciplinary action against 28 US troops in the 2002 deaths of two prisoners in Afghanistan, defence officials said on Thursday.

The move follows army charges filed earlier against a US military police sergeant in the alleged abuse deaths of the two detainees at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul.

It also marked the latest step by the U.S. military against soldiers involved in the abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The defence officials gave no details of the report by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. But the service planned an announcement shortly that could include recommendations for charges ranging from unintentional homicide to dereliction of duty in the deaths, they said.

One of the officials said the report included evidence that could support serious criminal charges in some cases. The soldiers, believed to include both military police and intelligence troops, will not be identified because commanders have not reviewed the report and no charges have been filed.

The two prisoners died on Dec 4 and Dec 10, 2002, after blunt force injuries, according to the Army. Military medical examiners classified their deaths as homicides.

Sgt. James Boland, an Army reservist in the 377th Military Police Company, was earlier charged with assault, maltreatment and dereliction of duty in the deaths, the U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort McPherson, Georgia, said last month.

Army officials had said then that perhaps several dozen troops from Boland's Cincinnati-based unit, as well as the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, could face charges.

Boland was ordered to Fort Knox, Kentucky, while his case is pending. Seven Army military police soldiers have been charged in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

Army investigators in August also recommended criminal charges against dozens more military intelligence and military police soldiers as well as private contractors.

The Afghan investigation focuses on cases of prisoner abuse that took place there more than three months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq and even longer before the physical abuse and humiliation of Iraqis and Abu Ghraib in the fall and winter of 2003.

The 519th Military Intelligence Battalion was posted in 2002 at Bagram, the large base where U.S. forces held many prisoners in Afghanistan. Some soldiers from the unit later were sent to Iraq and served at Abu Ghraib, where they were linked to abuse of prisoners there.

The Army said in May military medical examiners classified the deaths of the two Bagram prisoners as homicides. Autopsies said a 30-year-old prisoner died of a blood clot in the lung triggered by blunt-force injuries to the legs, and a 22-year-old prisoner died because of blunt-force injuries to his lower extremities that exacerbated existing coronary artery disease. -Reuters