KABUL: The US military in Afghanistan began a court martial yesterday of a US soldier accused of striking two detainees, with a second soldier to face similar charges next week.

Army Specialist James Hayes was charged with “conspiracy to maltreat, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees and assault consummated by battery,” the US-led coalition said in a statement.

Army Sergeant Kevin Myricks would go before the court martial on Monday, it said. The trials were being held at the main US base in Afghanistan at the town of Bagram, 60km north of capital Kabul.

A third soldier has already been punished for knowing about the incident in July last year in southern Uruzgan province and not immediately reporting it to authorities.

The coalition announced in October that the two soldiers were alleged to have punched the detainees in the chest, shoulders and stomach.

The US military has been stationed in Afghanistan since helping to topple the hardline Taliban government in late 2001. It leads a force of nearly 20,000 troops hunting insurgents, including from the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies.

The force has been under fire from human rights groups for mistreating prisoners arrested during the operation.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has said at least six detainees in US custody in Afghanistan have been killed since 2002 with US Department of Defence documents showing that five of the deaths were homicides.

An incident that caused particular outrage in this devout Islamic country was the burning by US soldiers of the bodies of two Taliban fighters killed in a clash in September last year.

The burning of bodies of Muslims violates tenets of Islam as well as some international treaties on war.

The US military found the soldiers had torched the decomposing corpses for hygiene reasons, but it issued them with a reprimand for going against Islam, a punishment the Afghan government said was too lenient.

Video footage of the incident also showed two other soldiers using the burning to taunt other Taliban, apparently to try to provoke them to fight.

These soldiers were also reprimanded over the original incident, given “non-judicial punishment” - which may include a loss of rank, and reassigned. - AFP