The
Sacramento Bee today reports that in at least one case, the minor child of a prisoner was abused to get his father to talk, according to testimony provided to the House Government Reform subcommittee.
More below the fold ...
[Spc. Samuel] Provance made a new allegation about the Abu Ghraib controversy, saying that U.S. forces had captured the 16-year-old son of an Iraqi general under Saddam Hussein, Hamid Zabar, to pressure the general into providing information.
"I was extremely uncomfortable about the way General Zabar had been treated, but particularly the fact that his son had been captured and used in this way," Provance said. "It struck me as morally reprehensible, and I could not understand why our command was doing it."
According to the respected Austrian paper Der Standard, Zabar's son was hosed down with ice water and locked into a cell block with another prisoner notorious for raping fellow inmates. At this point, it is not known whether the minor was actually raped. Apparently the tactic backfired, as General Zabar was "so devastated that he was incapable of giving further testimony".
Please note that these are allegations made in the foreign press not yet confirmed domestically. I will update if an English language source for these additional allegations becomes available.