Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Army closed an investigation into whether former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, now awaiting execution, was tortured by U.S. personnel in 2003 because of ``insufficient evidence,'' a spokesman said.

Ramadan said ``methods of torture'' were used against him after he failed to provide information on the whereabouts of deposed President Saddam Hussein while he was in hiding, or on the Iraqi resistance, according to a copy of a sworn statement dated March 22, 2006, made available by his lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano.

``We did conduct an investigation into the allegations made by Taha Yassin Ramadan,'' U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command spokesman Christopher Grey said in a statement e-mailed from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, yesterday. ``The investigation is closed. There was insufficient evidence to either prove/disprove the allegation.'' Grey did not give details of when the investigation was conducted.

Ramadan's statement said he was held after his arrest in August 2003 in a compound at Baghdad airport, where he was kicked, beaten with an aluminum pipe and given limited access to water and a bathroom for 20 days.

Ramadan's co-defendants Hussein, Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Hamed al-Bandar have already been executed by hanging. Ramadan was initially sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite Muslims in the village of Dujail. An appeals court on Feb. 12 ruled the sentence too lenient and ordered his execution.

`Outrageous'

Di Stefano, speaking by telephone from his home in Rome, said today the closure of the investigation before torture could be disproved was ``outrageous.''

Di Stefano said he had requested all information regarding his client's arrest and detention, and U.S. authorities never told him they had investigated a torture allegation.

``What worries me is that they said they couldn't prove or disprove it,'' Di Stefano said. ``When someone makes an allegation of torture, you would want the standard to be that it must be disproved before the investigation is closed.''

Grey said in yesterday's e-mail that the Army wouldn't confirm the authenticity of the document provided by Di Stefano, as it ``was not properly redacted and formally released by this organization.'' Grey did confirm that the Army knew of Ramadan's claim.

``As always, if we discover any credible information concerning this matter in the future, CID stands ready to reopen the investigation,'' Grey said.

In his statement, Ramadan said he was visited by a doctor twice over 22 days. The doctor told him that he would receive proper medical treatment ``by cooperating with investigators,'' according to the statement.

Ramadan was No. 20 on the U.S.'s list of the 55 most wanted officials of the Iraqi regime. A former bank clerk, Ramadan -- who reports variously say was born in 1936 or 1938 -- joined the military and became a member of the Baath Party in 1956. He served as Hussein's vice president from March 1991 until U.S. forces invaded Iraq in 2003.

To contact the reporters on this story: Steve Scherer in Rome at sscherer@bloomberg.net; Sheyam Ghieth in Rome at sghieth@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 21, 2007 13:53 EST