An Afghan detainee in U.S. custody was so brutalized before his death   that his thigh tissue was "pulpified," a forensic pathologist   testified Tuesday at a preliminary hearing for a military police   officer charged in the 2002 assault.

 "It was similar to injuries of a person run over by a bus," said Lt.   Col. Elizabeth Rouse, who performed an autopsy on the detainee,   identified only as Dilawar.

 Rouse's telephone testimony came on the second day of an Article 32   hearing -- the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding -- to   determine whether Army Pfc. Willie V. Brand, 26, should be court-  martialed. 

 In addition to facing an involuntary manslaughter charge in the   Dilawar case, Brand also is charged with assault for allegedly   striking a second detainee, Mullah Habibullah, who also died in U.S.   custody.

 Brand is one of two soldiers charged so far in the assaults that took   place at the Bagram Control Point, a temporary holding center for   detainees in Afghanistan, about 40 miles north of Kabul. A hearing   for the other soldier, Sgt. James P. Boland, is pending. Both   soldiers are members of the 377th Military Police Company, an Army   Reserve unit based in Cincinnati.

 Army investigators testified that Brand acknowledged that he   delivered more than 30 consecutive knee strikes to Dilawar as he   stood in shackles, his arms chained to a ceiling. But Brand defended   his actions, telling investigators that his superiors were aware that   the blows were routinely delivered to force detainees to comply with   the guards' orders.

 "I did what everybody else did. It was not according to doctrine, but that was standard practice. That was how things were done," Brand   said in a statement.

 Investigators described the Afghan holding center as a two story,   hangar-style building of interview rooms and isolation cells fitted   with ceilings of concertina wire. The night before Dilawar's death,   Brand said in a Jan. 24, 2004, statement, he went to Dilawar's   isolation cell to help another guard give the man water. The guards   then attempted to place a hood on Dilawar's head, a practice reserved   for unruly detainees or those being escorted from a cell to an   interrogation room. Dilawar -- in chains, his wrists shackled above   his head -- resisted, and Brand said he struck him twice with his   bent knee.

 In a Feb. 3, 2004, statement, Brand acknowledged that at another   time, he delivered more than 30 knee strikes to Dilawar. Asked what   provoked the punishment, Brand told investigators he couldn't   remember.

 Brand also admitted striking Habibullah in the thighs when he   resisted efforts to put a hood on his head. "Allah, Allah, Allah,"   Brand recalled Habibullah crying.

 Dilawar died from "blunt force trauma to the lower extremities   complicating coronary artery disease," Rouse said. Habibullah died of   a pulmonary embolism apparently formed in his legs from the beatings.

 Army investigator Angela Birt said that delivering knee strikes was   so routine for Brand that "the two [detainees] didn't stick out in   his mind because he couldn't remember how many he had struck."

 Brand's lawyer, John Galligan, said outside the courtroom   that "everything that was done was done in order to perform his   mission.... I'm greatly disturbed a young soldier like Brand who,   responding to his country's call, does what he thinks is right and we   turn around and place him on the criminal docket."

 Brand, the father of four, sat expressionless at the defense table as   autopsy photographs of Dilawar were entered into evidence.

 When investigators had asked him during a 2004 interview if the knee   blows were wrong, he replied: "No, not wrong wrong but necessary to   achieve what you wanted them to do."