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| Screening of prison officials is faulted by lawmakers |
| By New York Times |
| Published: 05/24/2004 |
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The use of American corrections executives with abuse accusations in their past to oversee American-run prisons in Iraq is prompting concerns in Congress about how the officials were selected and screened. Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft questioning what he described as the "checkered record when it comes to prisoners' rights" of John J. Armstrong, a former commissioner of corrections in Connecticut. Mr. Armstrong resigned last year after Connecticut settled lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and the families of two Connecticut inmates who died after being sent by Mr. Armstrong to a supermaximum security prison in Virginia. One of the inmates, a diabetic, died of heart failure after going into diabetic shock and then being hit with an electric charge by officers wielding a stun gun and kept in restraints. In his letter, Mr. Schumer requested that the Justice Department conduct an investigation into the role of American civilians in the Iraqi prison system. Mr. Armstrong is assistant director of operations of American prisons in Iraq, and Mr. Schumer said he was apparently working under contract for the State Department. State Department officials had no comment on the case and could not confirm whether Mr. Armstrong worked for the department in Iraq or not. Mr. Armstrong, who has an unlisted phone number, could not be reached for comment. Another official, Lane McCotter, who was forced to resign as director of the Utah Department of Corrections in 1997 after an incident in which a mentally ill inmate died after officers left him shackled naked to a restraining chair for 16 hours, was dispatched by Mr. Ashcroft to head a team of Americans to reopen Iraq's prisons. After his resignation in Utah, Mr. McCotter became an executive of a private prison company, the Management and Training Corporation, one of whose jails was strongly criticized in a Justice Department report just a month before the Justice Department sent him to Iraq. The report found that the jail, in Santa Fe, lacked adequate medical and mental health care and had no suicide prevention plan, which had contributed to an inmate's hanging himself. In Iraq, it was Mr. McCotter who first identified Abu Ghraib as the best site for America's main prison and who helped rebuild the prison and train Iraqi guards, according to his own account, given to The Corrections Connection (www.corrections.com), an online industry magazine. Officials at the Justice Department would not say who decided to give Mr. McCotter the assignment or whether the Justice Department was aware of his history when Mr. Ashcroft announced his appointment. |
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