Station XIV: Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb

Lestor Doré

The 14th Station of the Cross — The Entombment — has long been a popular subject in Christian art. The Old Masters rendered this subject in paintings, etchings, and sculptures for the Church or their wealthy ruling-class patrons. My version is dedicated to a young taxi driver named Dilawar. In 2002, American soldiers beat him to death during his extrajudicial detention at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.

Chained to the ceiling of his cell for several days, he called upon God in his pain and desperation — as Jesus did from the Cross, according to the Gospels. Unfortunately, Dilawar’s name for God was Allah, and every time he called out the name of Allah he was struck again with a blow to the legs that the guards had been taught would not show marks and was admissible to use to control prisoners. The doctor who autopsied Dilawar listed the cause of death as homicide; the Army reported that he had died of natural causes.

Eventually, a military investigation was conducted and a few of the soldiers who had participated in the beatings were demoted or reprimanded and given honorable discharges. The one who openly admitted what he had done was tried, convicted, served a few months in the brig, and was also honorably discharged. The commander of the interrogation unit who authorized harsh techniques of “softening up” detainees received a promotion and a Bronze Star for valor for her service at Bagram. She went on to serve at Abu Ghraib during the time the infamous photos of detainee abuse were taken. She is still in the Army training interrogators.

Dilawar is survived by his wife and a daughter who was two years old at the time of his death. His story has been told in the documentary film, Taxi to the Dark Side.