Jamal Nasser ( – March 16, 2003) was an

Afghan Afghan or Afgan may refer to: Related to Afghanistan *Afghans, historically refers to the Pashtun people. It is both an ethnicity and nationality. Ethnicity wise, it refers to the Pashtuns. In modern terms, it means both the citizens of Afghanist ...

soldier who died on March 16, 2003 in

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

' custody at a Gardez Fire Base, an American outpost in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. In 2004, eighteen months after his death, when Nasser's

death in custody A death in custody is a death of a person in the custody of the police or other authorities or while in prison. In the 21st century, death in custody remains a controversial subject, with the authorities often being accused of abuse, neglect and ...

was brought to the attention of American headquarters, his death was attributed to a kidney infection. Later, an investigation determined that the account of death by natural causes was a fiction, the result of collusion among the GIs in the Special Forces unit who had custody of Nasser when he died. After a two-year investigation, no one was held responsible for his death. Reprimands were filed in the dossiers of several GIs for the failure to report his death.

Senator Patrick Leahy's account

According to

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy ( ; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who represented Vermont in the United States Senate from 1975 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he also was the pr ...

: :

Neimann Foundation for Journalism account

Craig Pyes, one of the two ''LA Times'' reporters who broke the story, described the process of researching the story for the Neiman Report, the publication of the

Neiman Foundation for Journalism The Nieman Foundation for Journalism is the primary journalism institution at Harvard University. History It was founded in February 1938 as the result of a $1.4 million bequest by Agnes Wahl Nieman, the widow of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of ' ...

. Pyes wrote that he and his colleague, Kevin Sack, decided to conduct a parallel investigation to the Army's official investigation. He wrote they interviewed more than 1,000 individuals. *They found that Jamal Nasser was in the custody of a unit known as ODA 2021, at an American firebase in Gardez. *Nasser was captured with seven other Afghan soldiers, who described being beaten for seventeen days. *Nasser's brother, a member of the eight-member Afghan squad, had one of his toenails pried off by his American interrogators. *The Afghans had their clothes doused with glacial meltwater, and were left outside all night in freezing cold weather.

References

Afghan extrajudicial prisoners of the United States Extrajudicial prisoners killed while in United States custody 2003 deaths 1980s births Afghan people who died in prison custody Year of birth uncertain Afghan torture victims Patrick Leahy {{Afghanistan-bio-stub