U.S. soldier held amid inquiry into Afghan detainee’s death

An American soldier has been placed in custody and a criminal investigation opened into the shooting death of a Taliban prisoner in volatile Kandahar province, U.S. military officials said Tuesday.

The incident could inflame tensions between the Western military and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who earlier in the day had described the detainee’s death as an “assassination” and demanded a thorough investigation.

The case coincides with grisly disclosures arising from the hearings in Washington state of five U.S. servicemen accused of deliberately killing Afghan civilians during a tour of duty in Kandahar and keeping fingers and other body parts as trophies.

Details in the detainee’s death have been slow to emerge. Military officials initially said only that a man had been found dead Sunday in an Afghan holding facility in Arghandab, a district on the outskirts of Kandahar city. The area has been the scene of heavy fighting between the Taliban and Western troops, mostly American.

The captive, who was under U.S. guard at the time, died of an “apparent gunshot wound,” the American military said in Tuesday’s statement. It described the prisoner as a senior leader of a Taliban network in Arghandab who had been captured Saturday by coalition forces.

Military officials did not identify the unit of the American soldier in custody.

“The U.S. takes very seriously any mistreatment of detainees,” Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the director of communications for U.S. forces, said in a statement. “Our forces are trained to uphold the rights of persons in custody, and any violation of those rights are fully investigated.”

The subject is a sensitive one at the moment; this week U.S. military officials denied allegations of mistreatment at a detention facility at Bagram airfield, north of Kabul, the capital.

The investigation of the death in Kandahar was being carried out by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division, the military said, adding that the Afghan government would be kept fully informed.

Karzai’s office had said in a strongly worded statement hours earlier that it had received reports that “coalition forces entered the Arghandab district prison and assassinated a prisoner.” It identified the slain man as Mullah Muhebullah.

The Afghan leader’s relations with the West have been rockier than usual of late, with much of the discord centered on allegations of widespread graft in Karzai’s government and his inner circle.

The Afghan government announced Tuesday that all private banks would be subject to an independent audit, including Kabul Bank, which last month teetered on the edge of failure after a corruption scandal came to light. One of Karzai’s brothers is a major stockholder.

Indications are also growing that September’s parliamentary elections were tainted by massive fraud, much like the presidential vote 13 months earlier. A preliminary tally was to be released Wednesday, amid complaints that election authorities had been pressured to quash allegations of voting irregularities.

The continuing political tensions come amid what has been the bloodiest year of the war for Western troops. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization force said Tuesday that three Western service members had been killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan’s south. Their nationalities were not disclosed.

Most of the 30,000 U.S. troops who arrived as part of a buildup ordered by President Obama are serving in the south, where the NATO force is seeking to dislodge insurgents from strongholds in Kandahar and Helmand provinces.

laura.king@latimes.com