UN joins Karzai in calling for Bagram abuse inquiry

On the eve of a tense US-Afghan summit, the United Nations condemned as "utterly unacceptable" the alleged abuse prisoners at the main American base in Afghanistan.

The UN joined Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, in demanding that the Pentagon agree to an independent investigation of conditions at Bagram airbase by local human rights investigators.

In a harshly worded statement, Jean Arnault, the special UN representative in Kabul, insisted those responsible for such "inexcusable crimes" must be punished.

Mr Karzai, who meets President George Bush at the White House today, said in a US television interview that he would demand custody of all detainees in his country, as well as control of US military operations.

The Pentagon has thus far not directly responded to the charges, which stem from a lengthy report in The New York Times detailing the torture and deaths of two apparently innocent Afghans at Bagram in 2002.

The exchanges have set the tone for what promises to be difficult discussions between the two leaders, with Washington facing intense criticism for its alleged abuse and contempt for Islam in its prisons.

The recent revelations have further damaged opinion of America in the Muslim world, sending its standing to new lows. Earlier this month anti-US protests swept Afghanistan, killing more than a dozen, after Newsweek magazine published a report (since retracted) that US guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba flushed pages from the Koran down a lavatory.

But the US will make complaints of its own to the Afghan President, notably that he has not done enough to eradicate opium poppy cultivation. A memo from the US embassy in Kabul, leaked to The New York Times yesterday, said Mr Karzai had been "unwilling to exert strong leadership" to implement a programme to uproot the poppy. The memo also blamed Britain, in charge of the international anti-heroin effort there, for failing to target the biggest growing areas.

Mr Karzai rejected the charges, saying 30 per cent of plantations had been destroyed, and blaming the problem on assistance that had been delayed and half-hearted.

British officials also reject suggestions that they have been at fault.

YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN, PAGE 31