Military officials have questioned members of a Cincinnati-based military police unit who were working at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan when two prisoners were killed in December 2002, a newspaper reported Friday.
Christopher Grey, a spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, told The Plain Dealer that the probe is almost complete but wouldn't say which units are being investigated.
Sgt. Brent Hopkins, a member of the Army Reserve's 377th Military Police Company, said he has been interviewed by military officials about the unit's service in Afghanistan within the past year but would not say what was discussed. Hopkins, of Mooresville, Ind., said the unit guarded gates inside the air base.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that an Army document states members of an intelligence battalion from Fort Bragg and an Army Reserve military police unit from Ohio had been questioned about the deaths, both of which were ruled homicides.
The document, which summarizes the status of prisoner abuse investigations, was drafted earlier this month after the disclosure of photos of prisoners being abused by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The 377th unit, made up of 124 soldiers from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, arrived at Bagram in August 2002 and returned to the United States in March 2003, said Army Reserve spokesman Bill Geddes.
Geddes said the unit's activities included guarding detainees in an area known as the Bagram Collection Point.
"A lot of what they were doing there is classified information," Geddes said.
