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Ladybbird · 29-09-12, 20:17

Captured as 15-year-old fighting in Afghanistan, Omar Khadr, sent to finish his sentence in his native Canada.

29 Sep 2012 ,Al Jazerra

January 2012 marked the tenth anniversary of the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba [Reuters]

The youngest Guantanamo prisoner, Omar Khadr, who was a 15-year-old fighting in Afghanistan when captured in 2002, was sent to finish his sentence in his native Canada.
A military plane carrying Khadr, who pleaded guilty to killing a US soldier and admitted links to al-Qaeda, left the US naval base on Saturday morning, the Toronto Star newspaper and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation said.

Vic Toews, Canada's public safety minister, confirmed the return of Khadr to Canada at a hastily arranged media briefing in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

A US war crimes tribunal in 2010 sentenced Khadr, now 26, to 40 years in prison, although he was expected to serve just a few more years under a deal that included his admission he was an al-Qaeda conspirator who murdered a US soldier.
Khadr pleaded guilty in 2010 to charges that included conspiring with al-Qaeda to commit terrorist acts, making roadside bombs to target US troops in Afghanistan, spying on American military convoys and providing material support for terrorism.

'Family of terrorism'

Khadr was eligible to return to Canada from Guantanamo Bay last October under terms of a plea deal. But Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government had long refused to request the return of Khadr.

The reluctance was partly due to suspicions about the Khadr family, which has been called "the first family of terrorism".

"His head is spinning a bit and it's going to be a real adjustment for him, but at the same time he is so happy to be home,'' John Norris, Khadr's Canadian lawyer, said after speaking with his client.
"He can't believe that it is finally true. He simply can't. For very good reason he was quite fearful that the government would not follow through on its word and he's pinching himself right now not believing that this government has finally kept its word,'' he said.

Norris said Khadr would be eligible for parole as early as the summer of 2013. He said Khadr's return to Canada comes 10 years too late.

Citizenship

Vic Toews, Canada's public safety minister, said the US government initiated Khadr's transfer and suggested that Canada had little choice but to accept him because he is a Canadian citizen.
It will be up to Canada's national parole board to release him, Toews said.

Quote:

"I am satisfied the Correctional Service of Canada can administer Omar Khadr's sentence in a manner which recognises the serious nature of the crimes that he has committed and ensure the safety of Canadians is protected during incarceration,'' Toews said.

Quote:

"Most of what he [Toews] has said there is simply not true. It's part of the stereotype of Omar that this government has been disseminating from the beginning."
- John Norris, Khadr's Canadian lawyer

Norris said it is regrettable that the minister is trying to influence the parole board.

"Most of what he has said there is simply not true. It's part of the stereotype of Omar that this government has been disseminating from the beginning,'' Norris said.

The US Defence Department confirmed the transfer in a statement and said 166 detainees remain in detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Khadr was 15 years old when captured in Afghanistan in 2002. He was the first person since World War Two to be prosecuted in a war crimes tribunal for acts committed as a juvenile.
Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior al-Qaeda member who apprenticed the boy to a group of bomb makers who opened fire when US troops came to their compound.
Khadr was captured in the firefight, during which he was blinded in one eye and shot twice in the back.
END

Ladybbird · 29-09-12, 20:51

Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Guantanamo Bay prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died without having ever been charged with a crime.

22 Sep 2012 Al Jazerra

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, who spent 11 years at Guantanamo Bay, was found dead in his cell [GALLO/GETTY]

Quote:

"I am happy to express from this darkness and draw a true picture of the condition in which I exist. I am moving towards a dark cave and a dark life in the shadow of a dark prison. This is a prison that does not know humanity, and does not know anything except the language of power, oppression and humiliation for whoever enters it. It does not differentiate between a criminal and the innocent."
-Guantanamo inmate Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif in a letter to his lawyer, dated December 26th, 2010

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon quietly released a statement that another Guantanamo detainee had died in custody, the ninth since the prison was opened in 2001. Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 32-year-old man from Yemen who had spent eleven years incarcerated, was found dead in his cell on September 8.
The cause of his death has been recorded as unknown and may never truly be known, but Latif had long suffered from feelings of extreme depression during his time in jail, having made several suicide attempts in the previous years.

Latif had long complained of abuse by prison staff and of his deteriorating physical and mental condition during his imprisonment. Two years earlier, he had written that guards "entered my cell on a regular basis. They throw me and drag me on the floor... they strangle me and press hard behind my ears until I lose consciousness".

In 2009 he slit his wrists in an attempt to end his life, writing about the incident later to his lawyer to say that his circumstances in Guantanamo "make death more desirable than living".

Latif was initially captured by Pakistani bounty hunters in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks when a mixture of confusion and desire for vengeance resulted in the effective labelling of any military age Arab males found in Afghanistan and Pakistan as potential terrorists.
He had been receiving medical care in Amman, Jordan for chronic injuries he had received from a car crash in Yemen that had fractured his skull and caused permanent damage to his hearing. Lured to Pakistan by the promise of cheap healthcare, once the war started he ended up caught in the dragnet of opportunistic bounty hunters who detained him, proclaimed him a terrorist and handed him over to the US military in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Later it would come out that such bounty hunters had been unscrupulous, detaining individuals and labelling them as terrorists baselessly in order to collect large cash incentives from the US military for their handover.

No evidence was ever found connecting him to terrorism or violent militancy of any kind, and later medical examinations taken of him upon intake into military custody would corroborate his story regarding the nature of the head injuries he had come to Pakistan to treat. Indeed, when he was apprehended he was found not to be in possession of weapons or extremist literature of any kind - what he had with him were copies of his medical records.

While during all his years in custody Latif has never been charged with nor convicted of any crime related to terrorism or any other offence, his death now is made even more tragic due to the fact that he had been recommended for release from Guantanamo by the Department of Defence since as early as 2004, and again in 2007, which said at the time that it had determined that he "is not known to have participated in any combatant/terrorist training".

In 2009 a special task force commissioned by the Obama administration also ruled that Latif should be released, a decision which its internal mandates specified could only be reached by the unanimous consensus of all US intelligence agencies.

However despite being cleared for release he remained in military custody as a decision had been made not to repatriate any prisoners to Yemen due to ongoing political instability in the country, effectively leaving him and others like him in a state of indefinite detention.

Adnan Latif, a 32-year-old from Yemen, had been held at Guantanamo without charge since January 2002 [AP]

Despite this, Latif fought his own long legal battle through the civilian court system, taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to prove his innocence and win his release. Finally after years of legal challenges in 2010 an order for Latif's immediate release was given by US District Judge Henry Kennedy, who called the allegations against him "unconvincing" and in a 32-page order ruled that the government had failed to provide evidence that Latif had been part of al-Qaeda or any other militant group and ordering it to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Latif's release forthwith".

Despite this, the Department of Justice successfully appealed the judges' decision, and in a 2-1 ruling that Latif's release order was rescinded; effectively on the grounds that the allegations against him must be taken as accurate if they are claimed to be so by the government. The dissenting opinion lambasted the ruling as rigging "the game in the governments favour", with the ultimate result being to once more snatch away the prospect of freedom from Adnan Latif. Latif had placed his faith in the fairness and impartiality of the US legal system and it failed him utterly, inventing new grounds to keep him incarcerated and in the words of the dissenting judge, "moving the goalposts" in order to ensure that no matter what evidence existed regarding his innocence he would remain behind bars.

Throughout this time, almost a decade of his young life, Adnan Latif remained in Guantanamo Bay. He was interrogated hundreds of times and by his own account suffered frequent physical abuse and degradation at the hands of his captors. In a poem, he described the prison guards who were his warders as "artists of torture, pain, fatigue, insults and humiliation". He joined other prisoners in a hunger strike in protest of their continued imprisonment, being forcibly tied to a special restraining chair and force-fed liquids through his nose twice a day for years. Despite describing the pain of the feeding as being like "having a dagger shoved down your throat", Latif continued to remain on strike and continued his strike up to the time of his death. In the words of his lawyer David Remes, "This is a man who would not accept his situation... He would not accept his mistreatment. He would not go gently into that good night."

Witness - Four Days in Guantanamo

As the years dragged on and the prospect of him ever being released began to grow more remote, Latif's mental and physical condition continued to markedly deteriorate. During his incarceration, he wrote an abundance of letters and poetry which offer a window into the utter despair and hopeless into which his life had come; seemingly
forever confined to a prison his writings described as "a piece of hell that kills everything, the spirit, the body and kicks away all the symptoms of health from them".

Locked for nearly 10 years in an island prison thousands of miles away from his home, away from his loved ones and from everything which one would find
familiar and comforting in life.
Latif sank deeper into depression and hopelessness as the futility of the legal efforts towards winning his
freedom became clear.
In one of his last letters to his lawyer he tells him: "Do whatever you wish to do, the issue [of my defence] is over", and includes with it a
message of farewell written both to him personally as well to the world at large:

Quote:

"With all my pains, I say goodbye to you and the cry of death should be enough for you.
A world power failed to safeguard peace and human rights and from saving me. I will do whatever I am able to do to rid myself of the imposed death on me at any moment of this prison... the soul that insists to end it all and leave this life which is no longer anymore a life."

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died on September 8, 2012. He was described by those who knew him at Guantanamo as a slightly built man with a sensitive demeanour who was tormented by the circumstances of his life and the inescapable nightmare he found himself trapped in.
The booking photograph taken of him by military officials in prison show a young man whose pain is not sublimated but clearly written on his face; a visceral expression of sadness and torment.
He died without ever having been charged with a crime, and while we may never know the exact circumstances of his death, whether he took his own life, whether he died as the result of physical abuse by his captors - as many other detainees are believed to have - or whether his body simply collapsed after years of stress, his attorney offered his own perspective:

Quote:

"He was so fragile, he was so tormented that it would not surprise me if he had committed suicide... However you look at it, it was Guantanamo that killed him."

His own words paint the picture of a man who had lost faith in a society which had treated him with unrelenting malice and cruelty:

Quote:

"I have seen death so many times... Everything is over, life is going to hell in my situation... America, what has happened to you?"

Ladybbird · 29-09-12, 22:31

The Shame of Guantanamo Bay

All branches of the US government must act to end one of the most shameful episodes in American history.

Al Jazerra & A.P.

As documents secured by the ACLU demonstrate, Guantanamo became a perverse laboratory for brutal interrogation methods. Prisoners were subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, extreme temperatures and prolonged isolation. It started with two false premises: Those who were sent there were all terrorists picked up on the battlefield and that, as "unlawful enemy combatants", they had no legal rights.
In reality, a tiny percentage was captured by US forces; most were seized by Pakistani and Afghan militias, tribesmen, and officials, and then sold to the US for large bounties.

Our nation continues to pay the price for those egregious errors. Torture is the principal reason for the astonishing fact that, more than 10 years after 9/11, the alleged perpetrators of those attacks - though in US custody for as long as nine years - have not been brought to justice.

The reputation of the US as a defender of human rights has been profoundly diminished because of Guantanamo's continued existence. Our allies have refused to share intelligence out of concern that it will be used in unfair military commissions, and will not extradite terrorism suspects if they will end up in military detention. Perhaps most critically, military officials acknowledge Guantanamo has been used for years as a recruiting tool by our enemies - creating far more terrorists than it has ever held - thereby undermining rather than enhancing our security. And torture is also why federal courts were rejected in favour of military commissions with looser evidentiary standards. Even under this imbalanced system, only six Guantanamo prisoners have been sentenced for crimes before a military commission.

Each branch of government shares responsibility for the perpetuation of Guantanamo's legacy. Congress has chosen to score political points rather than do what's right. It has repeatedly used its power of the purse to prevent the release or resettlement of Guantanamo prisoners cleared for release, and to bar criminal trials of those against whom there is evidence for prosecution in federal court.

Guantanamo was not a problem of President Obama's making, but it is now one of his choosing. After his pledge to close Guantanamo within a year, the president failed to show the commitment necessary to build Congressional support, provide a logistical plan to release Guantánamo prisoners or bring them to trial. Like President Bush before him, Obama has also claimed the authority to detain without charge or trial terrorism suspects captured far from any theatre of war.

Finally, the courts have refused to articulate and enforce clear limits on the executive's detention authority. To be sure, the Supreme Court has on three occasions heard challenges to the Guantanamo regime, and every time has repudiated the excesses of the political branches. Those decisions held that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their detention under habeas corpus, that the Geneva Conventions applied to the fight with Al Qaeda, and that the Executive Branch could not unilaterally create a military commission system with limited rights for the accused.
However, the court has left unanswered two critically important questions: Who is detainable, and what process are they due? It has stood by as a lower court gutted meaningful habeas review, and held that a judge has no power to enforce a decision that a Guantanamo prisoner must be released. It also let stand a ruling that people tortured in Guantanamo could not sue for damages, holding they were not "persons' before the law", and that senior government officials could not have known that torturing non-citizens abroad was banned by the Constitution.

All branches of government must rise to the task. The Supreme Court must define the scope of war-time detention. It must ensure the right to habeas corpus is a meaningful one that tests, and does not rubber stamp, the government's case. Congress must lift the unnecessary restrictions on transfer and release from Guantanamo, particularly for the 89 men whom our security services and military have unanimously determined should be released.

President Obama must also show the courage of his previously stated convictions and either prosecute the other 82 men in federal court or set them free.
Then Guantanamo must close.
Anthony D Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Only six Guantanamo prisoners have been tried before a military commission [ACLU]

New York - This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the first prisoner arriving at Guantanamo Bay, making it the longest-standing war prison in US history. Guantanamo has been a catastrophic failure on every front. It has long been past the time for this shameful episode in American history to be brought to a close.
President Obama has failed to shutter Guantanamo, even though on his second day in office he signed an executive order to close the prison and restore "core constitutional values". In fact, the 2012 National Defence Authorization Act that Obama signed on New Year's Eve contains a sweeping provision that makes indefinite military detention, including of people captured far from any battlefield, a permanent part of American law for the first time in this country's history.

This is not just unconstitutional - it's just plain wrong.
Guantanamo was fashioned as an "island outside the law" where terrorism suspects could be held without charge and interrogated without restraint. Almost 800 men have passed through its cells. Today, 171 remain.

In Pictures: Guantanamo, a decade later

Ten years after Bush opened facility and two years after Obama called for its closure, 171 detainees remain.

KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty ImagesJune 23, 2011:
Activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods protest torture and call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility outside the White House.

Susan Walsh/APSeptember 14, 2001:
US congress passes AUMF bill, giving President Bush unprecedented authorisation to use force against "nations, organisations and individuals" whom he determined were connected in any way with the 9/11 attacks or future acts of international terrorism.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty ImagesSeptember 17, 2001:
President George Bush signs memorandum authorising CIA to set up detention facilities outside the US containing specific information relating to the sources and methods by which the CIA was to implement the detention programme.

AFP/Getty ImagesDecember 28, 2001:
Justice department memorandum to Pentagon says because Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, federal courts should not be able to consider habeas corpus petitions, or right to a fair trial, from "enemy aliens" detained at the base.

STR/REUTERSJanuary 11, 2002:
The first detainees are transferred to Guantanamo from Afghanistan and are held in wire mesh cages in an area known as Camp X-Ray.

AP/APAugust 01, 2002:
Justice department memorandum to then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales says president can authorise torture, that interrogators may cause severe pain before crossing torture threshold. Another justice department memorandum to CIA gives legal approval for the agency to use 10 interrogation techniques against Abu Zubaydah. Techniques include stress positions, sleep deprivation, confinement in a small box and "waterboarding", in which the process of drowning the detainee is begun.

REUTERSJuly 07, 2004:
Pentagon announces formation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) – panels of three military officers who will review whether Guantanamo detainees are "properly detained" as "enemy combatants".

Alex Wong/Getty ImagesMay 25, 2005:
Amnesty International, the UK-based group, calls for the Guantanamo detention facility to be closed. The call is joined by UN experts, former US Presidents Carter and Clinton, heads of state from Europe and elsewhere, and other human rights and legal organisations.

ART LIEN/AFP/Getty Images December 13, 2006:
Federal judge dismisses Salim Ahmed Hamdan's habeas corpus petition on grounds that the Military Commissions Act (MCA), signed into law by President Bush in October of that year, strips federal courts of jurisdiction to consider such appeals.

STR/ReutersJuly 20, 2007:
President Bush issues an executive order authorising and endorsing secret detention so long as "conditions of confinement and interrogation practices of the programme" remain within limits set out in his order.

/EPAMay 01, 2008:
Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman was arrested by the Pakistani army in 2001. Al-Hajj spent six years in Guantanamo and was finally released without charge.

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERSJanuary 22, 2009:
Two days after his inauguration, President Obama signs three executive orders, one of which states the detention facility at Guantanamo "shall be closed as soon as practicable and no later than one year from the date of this order".

KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERSMay 21, 2009:
In a major speech on national security, President Obama restates his commitment to closing Guantanamo but endorses indefinite detention without criminal trial of some detainees.

BENJAMIN MYERS/REUTERSNovember 13, 2010:
The US attorney-general, Eric Holder, announces five Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks will be transferred to US and prosecuted in federal court. These same five detainees had been charged by Bush administration for trial by military commission in 2008.

STR/REUTERSJanuary 22, 2010:
Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the Guantanamo detention facility passes with 198 detainees still held in the base, about half of them Yemeni nationals. The Guantanamo Review Task Force issues final report, revealing that 48 detainees could neither be prosecuted nor released and had been "unanimously approved for continued detention under the AUMF".

John Moore/Getty Images December 01, 2011:
Almost two years after President Obama called for its closure, 171 men from more than 20 countries remain held at Guantanamo, most of them without charge or trial.

Data compiled by Amnesty International, the UK-based human-rights organisation.

gladiator · 29-09-12, 22:56

They should of let him rot there.

Ladybbird · 29-09-12, 23:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by gladiator

They should of let him rot there.

The guilty yes, none of those should ever be moved to decent countries, especially beautiful Canada, because what happened on 9/11 was horrendous and will never be forgotten.

But so many are still jailed in Guantanamo, even though they were proved innocent and their releases ordered by the courts in America years ago. That is not right.

They were imprisoned in Guantanamo, because some were paid bribes by the US agencies to turn people in. They didnt care whether they were innocent or guilty, they only wanted the $$$. That is disgraceful, now so many others that were responsible for 9/11 walk free, in fact I wouldnt be surprised if some of them that "snitched" are actually some of the guilty.

Ladybbird · 29-09-12, 23:53

Guantanamo Remembered: A Personal Perspective from an Innocent Prisoner

Ten years ago, Moazzam Begg was abducted from his home by Pakistani and US intelligence agents and taken to Guantanamo.

Moazzam Begg (right, with his father) has campaigned for those left behind in Guantanamo [GALLO/GETTY]

London, United Kingdom -

"You are now the property of the United States and you have no rights" -

Those were the first words to greet me and other prisoners held in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Ten years on, little has changed there.

My life was changed irretrievably on January 31, 2002, when Pakistani and US intelligence agents abducted me from my home in Islamabad in the middle of the night, in front of my family - at gunpoint - and took me to a series of secret and military prisons that included Kandahar, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay.

After three years of an ordeal that included being punched and kicked, forcibly stripped, shaven, violated, spat upon; enduring racial and religious abuse, incommunicado incarceration in a cell smaller than an average house toilet; being subjected to more than 300 interrogations - sometimes with my wrists shackled to my ankles from behind my back; watching the Quran being desecrated; being threatened with torture in Syria or Egypt; being subjected to the sounds of screams I was made to believe were from my family members and watching two prisoners being beaten to death, I was finally returned to the UK and to my family - which had a new member, my three-old-son, whom I had never seen.

Like the overwhelming majority of the prisoners there, I was interrogated by the world's most powerful law enforcement and intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, MI5, ***CITF***, (Live link for reference), US military intelligence and many others. I have also learned - since my release - that many other nations were allowed to use the Guantanamo experiment to interrogate dissidents from their own countries, such as Libyan intelligence under Colonel Gaddafi. But, despite the arsenal of weapons - both metaphoric and real - there were never any charges or trial for me.

Shortly after my return, I joined the human rights NGO, Cageprisoners, and found myself establishing strong links with former Guantanamo prisoners all around the world, in addition to their lawyers, and the families of those awaiting the return of their loved ones.

Survivor's guilt

What became evident to me early was that I was facing an internal struggle based on my faith, survivor's guilt and the natural quest for justice, which has become my resolute aim to date.

Since then, I have, by the grace of God, travelled the world to campaign for those left behind in Guantanamo.

I have toured with former US soldiers who were once Guantanamo prison guards, speaking about the evils of US foreign adventures and have sat with world leaders, asking them to take in prisoners unable to return to their countries of origin for fears, ironically, of imprisonment and torture. They were also interviewed by the Huffington Post, and spoke out about the inhuman tortures that happened in Guantanamo, against innocent inmates,

**** (Video Below on the torture)****,

Inside Story: Policy of Rendition

I've met prisoners from different suspect communities who once faced similar experiences to mine - and worse; I've met with victims of British and US rendition who have become leaders of their country after the Arab Spring and I've returned to the house I was abducted from in Pakistan to record the scene of the crime. I've also met with the family of a woman whose screams once echoed through Bagram's soulless prison.

I've earned accolades that range from being "Mandela-like" in my lack of bitterness towards my captors, to being called a terrorist sympathiser (notwithstanding the little detail that Nelson Mandela's 27-year imprisonment was as a "terrorist" under apartheid South Africa's rule) because I advocate dialogue with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, well before deals were being brokered in Qatar to accommodate the latter.

Whatever I've seen or done in these years, the one thing I've not been able to recover is something I've been fighting to get back: normality. There's no such thing anymore. After all, what's normal about expecting your family to understand all that has transpired in the world's most secret prisons to terrorism suspects, when that is not even possible for "ordinary decent criminals"? In addition to the irrepressible sense of camaraderie that exists between us all, this is one of the resonating features that unites the former prisoners together: a hushed recognition of one another's pain.

Irreparably changed

When men are eventually released, how are they supposed to renew their familial relationships when their internal survival mechanism told them to stop believing they were fathers, husbands and sons? How can they rebuild their lives and be part of society again, once the world's most powerful men (and media) have described them as the "worst of the worst" - terrorist scumbags who are bent on destroying, rather than building?

How do children, whose fathers are in Guantanamo, explain to their friends that "daddy is in prison" when society, by default, maintains that prisoners are bad men?

And what of those poor, innocent children whose lost childhoods without a father for so long can never be reclaimed? What can fill the chasm created when the child needed the father most - and he wasn't there to help? Speaking of children, the past decade in Guantanamo has witness numerous child-prisoners, (Live link for reference), who have grown into adults behind the razor wire, able-bodied men's once healthy limbs amputed, perfectly sane men losing their minds and freedom gained at last, for some, in a coffin.

To mark the tenth anniversary since the first prisoners were sent to Guantanamo, as pictures of men kneeling in orange jumpsuits, masked and goggled - looking like the extra-terrestrial beings we were told they were - shocked the world.

The 171 remaining Guantanamo prisoners, however, will be protesting their innocence via one of the few methods available to them: hunger strike. Even if that means being forcibly restrained in a chair and pumped with liquid food through the nostril to keep them alive - as the living dead men they've become in the world's most notorious prison - which is capable of destroying lives both inside and out - that we, and history, will never forget.
Moazzam Begg is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and spokesperson for Cageprisoners

****Interview on Guantanamo Torture****;

Ladybbird · 30-09-12, 00:26

Saudi Colonel Talal al-Zahrani on the death of his innocent son in Guantanamo

Written by Moazzam Begg, September 2012

Moazzam Begg in conversation with Colonel Talal al-Zaharni whose son died in Guantanamo in 2006

In July 2006 the US administration in Guantanamo reported that three prisoners at the detention facility committed suicide. Senior US officials, including camp commander Admiral Harry Harris described the deaths as acts of “asymmetric warfare” while deputyUS Assistant Secretary of Statefor PublicDiplomacy, Colleen Graffy, said the incident as a “good PR move” by the prisoners.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the families of the men who had waited an agonising five years for their loved ones met the news of the deaths with shock and acceptance. Shock (and disbelief) at the notion that their sons would commit suicide after having passed through trials even harder than Guantanamo, and acceptance in the way any Muslim is supposed to respond to a calamity

The father of one of these men, Col. Talal al-Zahrani, a former head of police for the Madinah district in Saudi Arabia, recently attended the Oslo premier of the documentary film Death in Guantanamo which tells the story of his quest for justice. Cageprisoners director Moazzam Begg met up with Col. Talal there and conducted the following interview:

Moazzam Begg (MB): Can you please introduce yourself to us and explain how your (son’s) case became well-known?

Colonel Talal al-Zahrani (CTZ): Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking interest in this case. I am Talal al-Zahrani, father of Yasser – one of the men who died in Guantanamo. This story of course has now become infamous because he [Yasser] is one of the three about whom the US administration declared had committed suicide at the Guantanamo prison around five years ago. Of course, this statement is something that we rejected the moment we heard it and, after that when more facts surrounding the incident began to emerge – i.e. that they had been killed in prison by some of the guards - our rejection of the US version of events was complete. This information came to light via some sources in the US – and elsewhere – such as the US Center for Constitutional Rights and the lawyers working with them who have taken on this task and started the case and we have given them all the relevant information regarding this case.
However, we have never received any response or co-operation from the US authorities to date but that has not prevented our determination in seeking to expose the truth behind these crimes and to have our day in court.

MB: We are presently in the city of Oslo, Norway. Can you tell me what has brought you here?

CTZ: I was invited to attend the screening of the film that I had taken part in the shooting of several months ago, so I am here to see it and meet people here at a conference.

MB: What do you see are the benefits of such a film, especially in places around the Muslim world, would such a film be welcomed?

CTZ: Any attempt to get at the truth of what happened, in my opinion, is beneficial and I believe this film does a very good job of doing that.

MB: Many people attended the screening and many more came to the conference to hear about your plight. How was the film received and what was the interaction with you like?

CTZ: Many people came and showed a great deal of support and sympathy. They were affected by what they saw and heard; several of them were even crying. They were greeting me with so much warmth and humanity and offered all their support.

MB: Before we continue I’d like to get some background details from you. What was Yasser like as a person, what was his life like before and what was he like as a son?

CTZ: Yasser was a young Muslim man – he was brought up in a practicing] Muslim household. Like many others his age he would hear about the affairs of the Muslim world, what it was going through and felt the pain that many Muslims were feeling eventhough he was not experiencing it himself. Among the places he was concerned with where he felt people were undergoing aggression and oppression was Afghanistan – despite his relatively young age. Thus he travelled there with the intention of assisting the Afghan people to do whatever he was able to.

MB: What was he like the last time you saw him, what frame of mind was he in?

CTZ: He was in high spirits and full of life. He was a very optimistic person; he loved sports, he had no physical or mental problems, al-hamdu lillah, he was a normal person who loved his studies, loved seeking knowledge but, he was also very affected by what was happening in the Muslim world and that is why he went to Afghanistan.

MB: So that was in 2001, before the US-led invasion?

CTZ: Yes, it was by a couple of months. It was the first time he left the Kingdom [Saudi Arabia] – he’d never been anywhere before that.

MB: When did you first hear about his capture and what was your reaction to this news?

CTZ: Well, he called us about six weeks after he’d left and told us that the country was in turmoil [following the attacks on the US] so we told him that he should now return home. However, we did not hear from him after that – all contact was cut – until almost five agonising months had passed. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead.

MB: So you had no news of him at all?

CTZ: Of course we saw the news regarding the US invasion, the bombing, evacuations and deaths but we didn’t know anything about our son.After five months we had a telephone call from the Saudi authorities who informed us “your son is in Guantanamo”. That was the first time we heard this news.

MB: How did you react, what was your prior impression of Guantanamo?

CTZ: At that time we didn’t know very much about Guantanamo other than it is a US prison. We had no details of why he was taken there, why he wasn’t held on the US mainland, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. We discovered the reasons for this much later.

MB: Did you fear that prisoners’ rights were being violated or that they were being tortured in US custody?

CTZ: None of us who heard about the detentions expected that Guantanamo – and what preceded it – would achieve notoriety as one of the worst prisons in history through the abuse of basic human rights and the systematic application of torture. We never imagined, not even one per cent, a nation we once looked up to, which claimed to uphold the highest levels of justice, freedom and human rights in the world could become the greatest violator of these rights.

MB: How did people in your society react to the news of Yasser’s incarceration, were they afraid, did they avoid you or were they sympathetic?

CTZ: To be honest from all the people we known from inside the Kingdom, or outside of it, we found to be very sympathetic because they knew our son and what he was like. He had no associations with anyone – he had simply gone for humanitarian work and was suddenly kidnapped from the land [Afghanistan] without explanation, after being falsely accused [of terrorism links], and sent to terrible prisons where he was tortured and then they informed us that he had committed suicide. So everyone we came across has been sympathetic – even Americans who have recognised the lies put forward by the US authorities have shown us great empathy, right from inside the US.

MB: What were your instincts as a father, did you think your son would remain in prison for a short while and return home or were you resigned to the prospect that he would remain there for a very long time?

CTZ: In truth we never expected – in the beginning – that anyone would leave that prison. We understood that it is a terrifying place where torture is practiced routinely, but when the first sets of Saudi prisoners were released our hopes were renewed that our son would also be freed. In fact, we believe he was due to be released with the third group of Saudi prisoners and we had mentally prepared for that.

MB: So you were receiving letters from him regularly?

CTZ: The postal system was sporadic – we received letters from him intermittently. Sometimes it took a long as a year to get a reply; we recognised later this was another method of psychological torture in order to keep the prisoners incommunicado from their loved ones so that no ones knows of their state or plight.

MB: You mentioned in the film Death in Guantanamo that you regard your son as a ‘hero’. Why did you say this?

CTZ: Because firstly he had gone for humanitarian work. Secondly, the powers that kidnapped, tortured, abused and ultimately killed him are oppressive, tyrannical, aggressive and malignant; they spread false rumours that in reality are unbelievable. These powers exercise distorted media lies to justify, kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and killing (death). My son was firm and brave and did not admit to any lies and false accusations levelled against himself despite the sever torture inflicted upon him and this was acknowledged by his fellow detainees who knew him. Yasser stayed firm upon his principles and only communicated the facts that they already knew and was patient upon this until they killed him and therefore I say that he was the possessor of morals and a hero. He had clear objectives in relation to himself and others. May Allah have mercy upon him

MB: You also said “he did not want to harm you”, that he used to say his situation was good and did not complain about problems?

CTZ: This is an aspect of heroism because he used to send us letters of reassurance saying that he is well and not to worry about him, even when it became clear later on that he was under severe pressure, suffering under a regimen of physical and psychological torture which the former US Defense Secretary has admitted, that orders were given to officers and those responsible for the prison which permitted the practice of torture of every kind – physical, psychological, ideological –, torture which was designed to violate human rights and to transgress against [the prisoners’] humanity and dignity. During this period of extreme hardship he [Yasser] would write to us and tell us not to worry and that all was well with him. This is an indication of his high morale and maturity.

MB: Of course, all that happened in Kandahar and Guantanamo was predated by the events of the Qala-i-Jangi massacre. Did you know that he had been a survivor of that place?

CTZ: We learned about this much later. The Qala-i-Jangi incident is a huge war crime which should be counted amongst the worst in modern human history, in which over 500 men were falsely imprisoned, and, with their hands bound behind their backs they were fired upon and then they [the survivors] entered the fortress (Qala) to save themselves from and resist the efforts of those who were trying to kill them using various barbaric methods – outside of any legal process. For close to two weeks they were subjected to this during which time over 500 were killed – may Allah have mercy on them all; Yasser was one of the 70 or so who survived this bloodbath.

MB: How did you receive the news of your son’s death and what went through your mind at the time?

CTZ: News of the death of my son – may Allah have mercy on him – was very sudden and unexpected. It was undoubtedly very painful and created intense feelings of sadness that deeply wounded our hearts. What made the pain and sorrow worse was the lies put out by the US authorities about the nature of his death – stating that he had committed suicide, something we later we able to establish was a complete falsification of the reality. All of this increased our anguish and grief, but it also made us angry.

MB: Where did this news come to you from – through the media, or the government?

CTZ: We were informed by the Saudi Interior Ministry – they told me that my son was amongst the three who had committed suicide.

MB: How long after that was it that you saw Yasser’s body and were able to look at it?

CTZ: About three days after the story broke the Saudi Interior Ministry informed me that my son had committed suicide. After that, about another week later the bodies arrived at Riyadh and we were informed that we could come to see him and collect the remains.

MB: What were your thoughts at the time when you first saw the body of your son?

CTZ: The grief of parents seeing their child’s body is one that is without doubt very painful; but, we say “From Allah we come and unto him we shall return,” and we are patient and hopeful [in Allah’s mercy] because people die in all types of circumstances, but when a man dies for a higher purpose, defending the oppressed, serving the weak and is helping to save them from harm [such as in Yasser's case] this gave us solace, on the one hand. On the other hand, we felt that those who carried out these crimes [against him] were cowards, and this also gave us some consolation. However, in the end, there is no doubt that the sadness and pain will remain with us for a long time.

MB: For any parent this is extremely testing and hard, yet you examined your son’s body and noticed something. Can you say what that was?

CTZ: Yes. When I looked at the body I saw what I’d expected: signs of torture and abuse. As I said, the US administration has admitted the authorisation and practice of torture so I was expecting to see its effects. But the signs I saw were even more than I’d anticipated: there were some terrible marks on his head, chest, face, arms and many other parts of his body. For example , his larynx had been removed. All of this showed the savage and cowardly nature of the people who did this. Those who torture prisoners are cowards. He was in isolation, a young boy who they killed and then accused of committing suicide [as a means of ‘asymmetric warfare’]. This is cowardice of the highest order.

MB: We saw from the video footage of the janaazah (funeral) procession that large numbers of people attended. How did they respond to the news in your locality and what were they saying?

CTZ: People reacted in the way of human fitrah (natural disposition): they rejected and were disgusted by this arrogant and repressive treatment of the prisoners; conceitedness against Allah’s creation, violating the rights of men. The people were following events closely. They were very angry against America and its policies – as you can see in the film. They were chanting “Allahu Akbar” and repeating slogans against the US and its policies. That is very clear.
People came in their thousands that day to the Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophet’s Mosque) in Madinah to attend the funeral prayer. They had come from all over the country – not just Madinah – but from Riyadh, Makkah, north and south of the country. Yasser was buried in the graveyard of al-Baqi, may Allah have mercy on him.

MB: At what point did you decide that the US’ version of events was not credible and that you would seek redress against US authorities?

CTZ: I decided from the first moment that I would try, to the best of my ability, to uncover the truth about my son’s death and to investigate the section [of the military] that had perpetrated this crime so that they receive what they deserve [of justice]. From the very beginning I had support, which I have to admit, came when I received communications from the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) lawyers who were concerned with human rights and the abuses [taking place at Guantanamo] – independent [of the US Government] of course – and they told me about their focus [on Guantanamo]. They came highly recommended from some friends of mine who had worked in the US who said they would take our case to the highest level (in sha Allah).

MB: You took your case to the US courts and accused former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of being personally responsible. Why him?

CTZ: Rumsfeld was the Minister of Defence. He is responsible without a doubt. The prison [Guantanamo] was under the administration of the Ministry of Defence. Rumsfeld was in charge and, he had already authorised the use of abusive techniques which is well-known. Thus, as far as we are concerned he is directly responsible. If this is properly investigated and presented to the courts it will become apparent that he was fully in charge and giving the orders. All of this will become clear and so we are seeking for this man to be prosecuted in addition to everyone who supported him in committing this crime.

MB: The Guantanamo deaths are still commonly referred to as ‘suicides’, but of course you have rejected this appellation. One of the soldiers [Staff Sgt. Hickman] who was present when the deaths occurred has openly claimed that ‘no one committed suicide that night’, supporting your suspicions all along. If you ever had the opportunity to meet those soldiers who were responsible for and took part in the death of your son, what would you say to them?

CTZ: There is no doubt that those who took part in and are responsible for this crime are amongst the worst types of criminals. Why? Because when an ordinary person commits a crime – even if it’s relatively small, he is regarded as a criminal. But when abuses are committed by a guard against a prisoner supposedly under his protection – he is responsible for that prisoner’s safety and then he kills that prisoner, he tortures him for years on end, and practices new techniques on him and then he kills him while his hands and legs are tied, such a person has descended to the lowest levels of humanity and has become a savage, having transgressed the limits of that humanity. Therefore, such people must be exposed and their crimes laid bare for the entire world to see. Such methods should not be available for use by countries that claim to raise the flag of human rights, freedom and justice while they are committing the worst abuses of all these rights in the world.

MB: How have you met your tests, as a Muslim, in relation to your son and faced up to them as a father?

CTZ: My dear brother. We are Muslims and Islam is peace, but it is not surrender to evil. And peace is offered to all those who want peace, but it does not meant surrender to all those who want to spread evil, corruption and transgression against others. A Muslim knows what his relationship to such things is – he does not transgress the rights of others nor does he allow others to violate his rights. So whoever thinks that he will make us Muslims bow to the might of such policies with repression and bombing, with fabricated evidence and lies devoid of facts, is deluded. Islamic people will never bow or prostrate to anyone other than to the One who created them. And we are of them.

MB: Finally, what message or advice do you have for Muslims in specific and people in general in relation to your case?

CTZ: I advise myself and my Muslim brothers with the words of the Most High: “...do not allow your animosity of a people to cause you to do them an injustice, be just, that is closer to taqwa [God-consciousness].” In this regard taqwa is being just in ones affairs with others – be they Muslim or not. Do not respond to transgression with injustice, this is not from Islam. Responding in such a manner is not differing from the oppressor but is rather becoming like him.

Ladybbird · 30-09-12, 08:16

Interrogations in Guantanamo

Investigator, a Canadian..... questions a child after he was tortured by the CIA in one of their Secret Prisons --- one was in Bagram;

"4 Days in Guantanamo- You Dont Like The Truth"

He was a child and eventually died from the torture...He was NOT evil nor a trained terrorist.

So those evil fanatics kill not only innocents by their attacks throughout the world, not only on 9/11. They kill "their own" and even their children.

Ex-Guantanamo Guard on torture

Please listen to what he has to say very carefully.

Many prisoners were educated professional people, that had nothing to do with terrorism, but simply were imprisoned by the US/CIA, because of the bribes they offered in various countries, that caused some to turn innocent people "in" for the money. The CIA did not bother to investigate beforehand, if those they detained & imprisoned were innocent.

I do hope that all my reports on Guantanamo does not offend any of you that lost loved ones and friends, either in Guantanamo, or by the actions of the evil fanatical Muslims, by 9/11 or their acts thereafter throughout the world. I do not mean any insult or to cause you any further pain, I too was greatly affected and hurt by terrorists acts, over the years, that caused my family to move.

The IRA actually murdered more in Northern Ireland and their ensuing bombings in the UK, than the numbers from 9/11, and the resulting US Embassy bombings throughout the world since.

In fact the IRA continue even today to train terrorists, not only in the Middle East, but in South America also.

I do apologise to any of you that had pain because of any terrorism.

It is just unfortunate that so many Muslims in some countries have become fanatics, either because they have been forced to constantly learn the Koran and repeat it every day in some schools, or they are just "turned" later in life when they have nothing more interesting to fulfill their brains/lives, and are unfortunate enough not to have the good opportunities, that most of us do, to progress and capture their hunger for more education and experiences.

Again I apologise if I have caused any offense to any of you... not intended, for sure. I merely report what I see, from whatever injustices occur in the world, as I have done in my Syria thread.

We must all believe in God....

There is only one God.... we just all travel along different paths to worship Him, just please do not hate Muslims as a whole. Just be kind to each other, and have a "clean heart".

Ladybbird

Ladybbird · 30-09-12, 10:31

Secret CIA Prisons

CIA 'has Secret Terror Jails'

The CIA is holding some of its most important suspects in a network of secret prisons including one at a Soviet-era facility in Eastern Europe, the Washington Post reported.

1.
A Saudi man, detained, tortured and held without charge by the US, is fighting for his rights

As Poland expands its investigation into a secret CIA prison on its soil, can the victims of extraordinary rendition who were held without charge ever get justice and will the CIA be held to account? Lawyers in Poland for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have asked Polish prosecutors to investigate his detention and torture at a CIA black site that once existed in that country.

2.
Report lists Missing CIA Detainees

Rights groups say whereabouts of 39 people held in secret CIA jails are now unknown.

3.
Amnesty attacks US over Secret Jails

The US government is running a string of prisons around the world, many of them secret camps through which people disappear, a top Amnesty International official says.

4.
CIA Sacks Agent for Secret Prisons Leak

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) says it fired an intelligence officer for leaking classified information about secret CIA prisons

5.
Red Cross probes CIA 'secret jails'

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States after a report of a covert CIA prison system for al-Qaida captives.

6.
UN- US 'should shut Secret Jails'

The United States should close its Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba and its secret prisons across the world, the UN says.

7.
Europe Calls for more details on CIA prisons

European lawmakers have demanded that their governments reveal the location of secret CIA prisons after George Bush admitted the US held terrorist suspects in Secret Jails abroad.

10.
EU- some nations 'knew of CIA Secret Prisons'

A draft report says many EU nations hid evidence of US secret prisons in Europe.

US Secret Prisons 'Bigger Issue'

Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith says Guantanamo overshadowing other US abuses around the world.

Mohammed al-Hajj, Sami's son, sent a message to his father from Al Jazeera's offices

Wearing a pristine white thobe, a dark skinned eight-year-old boy of Sudanese descent looks into a video camera.

He says: "Ana bahibak baba" (I love you dad) - part of a message to be sent to his father.

Mohammed al-Hajj, the timid boy on Al Jazeera English's studio lawn, is sending the message because he has not seen his father for six years.

And his father is desperate for any scraps of communication and support from the outside world - he is Sami al-Hajj, an inmate at Guantanamo Bay.

Al-Hajj is currently being force fed as he is on hunger strike and, according to Clive Stafford Smith, his British lawyer, he is also being subjected to psychological torture.

Stafford Smith says that the US authorities, desperate to get al-Hajj to end his hunger strike, have resorted to new methods of control.

"They've been telling him that he is strongly suspected of having cancer of the kidney and that he can't have proper medical care until he stops the hunger strike," Stafford Smith says.

"I honestly don't know if they are trying to terrify him to get him to stop the hunger strike or whether they are just being delinquent in not giving him medical care.
"And, of course, Sami told me - in fact, I'll quote him exactly: 'I worry too much. For three days I didn't sleep at all. I'd been lying there worrying that maybe I'm dying.' It has a real psychological impact."
It is clear that al-Hajj is in poor health. His hunger strike is reaching its 16th month and in the past six years he has undergone interrogation methods some say are illegal under international law.

Al-Hajj was captured on the Pakistan border in December 2001. He was attempting to travel to Afghanistan to work for Al Jazeera as a cameraman.

He is yet to be charged by the US military. They say that all of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre are "enemy combatants" and security threats.

There are currently over 170 prisoners in the US centre in Cuba. A little over 500 have left since it was opened as part of the US's "war on terror".

However, none of those has had their release ordered by courts because the US authorities have not allowed them to be tried.

'Secret prisons'

Surprisingly, Stafford Smith, who represents about 30 of the detainees, has reservations concerning the dominance of Guantanamo on the news agenda.

He says the much bigger issue - the suspected 27,000 prisoners held by the US in secret prisons around the world - is being overshadowed by the abuses of Guantanamo.

Stafford Smith says that the "battle" concerning
Guantanamo has not been won

These "ghost prisoners", held without charge in the dark recesses of the "war on terror" for instance Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, are the real issue, says Stafford Smith. This is what the public, and by implication the media, are missing, he says.

However bad those in Guantanamo have it, Stafford Smith believes conditions for these other prisoners are far worse.

Reprieve, the non-profit organisation that Stafford Smith founded, is attempting to name and locate these prisoners, but it is an arduous task.

And for the majority of those known to be held, there is little assistance - most do not have legal representation.

Public trial

Although Stafford Smith says that one day European courts may become the forum for litigation under the convention against torture, he says he wants the previous Bush administration's abuses to be exposed and tried in the public arena, much like Guantanamo.

"We'll sue them as well, but part of it is trying them in the court of public opinion and letting people know what has been going on. Just shining the bright light of day on what people have been doing," he says.

The focus will soon be allowed to move away from Guantanamo.

What will remain is Guantanamo's legacy - the legitimisation of the use of torture by governments around the world.

"You should never forget that what the Chinese do is outrageous and despicable and the same is true of a lot of other regimes around North Africa and the Middle East or wherever.

"The sad truth is that they have been joined by the US at this point, which encourages those despots in these other countries because they say, 'this is what George Bush did'.

"And everyone uses the word 'terrorism' to justify all sorts of terrible things. Putin says we can do anything we like because these are terrorists from Chechnya.

"That is the major legacy of President George W Bush."

Mohammed al-Hajj has not seen his father for six years

Having "won the battle in Guantanamo", Stafford Smith is now primarily concerned with highlighting the US's secret prisons.

Those in Guantanamo Bay prison remain behind bars despite holding little intelligence value, but on their release, life will never be the same again.

Al-Hajj has been told by his native country, Sudan, that he will be allowed back into the country only if he does not work for Al Jazeera.

For many, particularly those from developing countries, support and resources to help them recuperate are scarce.

And for Mohammed, the father who was taken away from him, seems likely to remain a distant figure for some time to come.......

Ladybbird · 01-02-13, 06:29

31 January 2013 Last updated at 19:26 ET

Guantanamo trials: Judge orders end to secret censor

The start of the trial could still be a year away

BBC News, 31 Jan 2013

The judge overseeing a military trial at Guantanamo Bay has ordered an end to secret government censors after courtroom sound was cut during a discussion about CIA prisons.
Army Col James Pohl ordered an unnamed government agency to remove censorship equipment, as a second round of pretrial hearings finished on Thursday.
The order could add further delays to the proceedings, correspondents say.
Defence lawyers want assurance talks with their clients were not tapped.
The judge said in his ruling that he had sole authority to decide when to close a hearing or stop spectators - including journalists and relatives of the victims - from listening to testimony.
Spectators watch the proceedings behind soundproof glass, and receive audio on a 40-second delay so that a court security officer can switch on a white noise machine while classified information is being discussed.
No 'unilateral decisions' But on Monday, the white noise machine was activated without the prior knowledge of the judge or the courtroom security officer.
The interruption came as a defence lawyer referred to a secret, overseas CIA prison where the defendants were held before they were brought to Guantanamo Bay.
Later, the judge decided the information was not secret and released a transcript of what was said.
Prosecutors said the courtroom audio was suspended by an OCA - Original Classification Authority - which could refer to any agency responsible for the classified information at stake.

"This is the last time that an OCA or any other third party will be permitted to unilaterally decide that a broadcast should be suspended," Col Pohl said in his order.

Defence lawyers also filed an emergency motion on Thursday asking to halt proceedings until they can be sure officials were not eavesdropping on communications with their clients.
The five defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, face death penalty charges that include murder and terrorism for their alleged roles in planning the 9/11 attacks.
Col Pohl did not rule on the defence lawyers' request, but said it would be addressed at the next session, scheduled for 11 February.
"This needs to be resolved before anything else," he said.
Meanwhile, a range of other legal issues that remain unresolved must be dealt with before the case can proceed to trial.
The four-day hearing was concerned with procedural matters, such as the rules for calling witnesses and handling classified evidence.

.

Ladybbird · 14-11-14, 17:07

Doctor Who Aided in Torture of Suspected Terrorist at Guantanamo Bay Won't be Punished by American Psychological Association

Dr John Leso consulted on the interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay
The methods were so severe that even Pentagon officials called them 'torture'
The American Psychological Association decided last month not to punish him
They cite instances where he spoke about being uncomfortable with detainee abuse

AP, 14 November 2014

The American Psychological Association has refused to punish one of its members for assisting in the torture of a 9/11 terrorist suspect at Guantanamo Bay.

Leaked documents show that Dr John Leso, now a retired US Army reserves, instructed prison staff on ways to obtain intelligence from detainees including Mohammed al-Qahtani, the twentieth 9/11 hijacking suspect. The methods were so severe even Pentagon officials called them 'torture'.

Methods included forcibly hydrating Qahtani though IVs and then not letting him use the bathroom. They also subjected him to loud music, made him bark like a dog and deprived him of sleeping saying he can go to bed 'when he tells the truth'.
But in an APA letter obtained by the Guardian from December 31, they decided they 'cannot proceed with formal charges in this matter. Consequently the complaint against Dr Leso has been closed'.

Fact: Leaked documents prove that Dr John Leso aided in the torture of a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay

The APA doesn't deny that Dr Leso took part in the torture, but says his actions didn't meet the burden of 'direct unethical conduct' since he was a noted critic of the military's intelligence gathering approach.

Leso and colleague Major Paul Burney were the authors of an interrogation handbook of sorts - a memorandum called 'Counter-Resistance Strategies which advised on how to best get information from prisoners.

'All aspects of the [detention] environment should enhance capture shock, dislocate expectation, and support exploitation to the fullest extent possible,' one section read.

Exonerated: But the American Psychological Association ruled last month that they will not carry out charges against Leso, one of their members. On the left, Mohammed al-Qahtani, the terrorist suspect he helped torture. On the right, a detainee being interrogated at Abu Ghraib

But Leso and Burney distanced themselves from the document during a Senate panel in 2007, saying they were' not comfortable with the memo they were asked to produce'.
Prior to that, just a month before logs show he aided in the interrogation of Qahtani, Leso was in a Guantanamo meeting in which he said that detainee abuse may not prove fruitful.

'Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees' frame of reference,' he said in October 2002. 'They are used to seeing much more barbaric treatment.'

These occasions of noted discomfort are what the APA are using to defend their move in exonerating Leso.

'Available evidence in the public domain also includes that, in the face of pressure from the highest levels of the Bush administration which strongly supported ‘enhanced’ interrogation tactics, the respondent sought consultation and argued against such approaches and in favor of rapport-building approach,' wrote Lindsay Childress-Beatty, the deputy director of the APA’s ethics office, in the December 31 letter.

The APA's decision has not been popular among other psychologists who believe this breaks their 'do no harm' rule.

Trudy Bond is the Ohio psychologist who complained about Leso's work at Guantanamo to the APA and said their decision sends the message that 'psychologists are free to violate our ethical code, perhaps, in certain situations'

Ladybbird · 09-12-14, 14:16

Sexual Threats Among Techniques to be Revealed in CIA Torture Report
-Expected to Spark Violence Around the Globe when it is Released today

One detainee threatened with sexual assault with broomstick, it is claimed
Man accused of USS Cole bomb plot 'menaced with a buzzing power drill'
Security has been increased at U.S. facilities across the globe today
Worldwide backlash anticipated ahead of release of damning report

Daily Mail UK, 9 December 2014

Sexual threats and menacing one detainee with a power drill are expected to be among controversial CIA torture techniques revealed in a report later today.

The report will detail interrogation techniques used by CIA agents in the wake of 9/11, including threats to sexually assault one captive with a broomstick, according to sources.

It also describes how terrorist Abdel Rahman al Nashiri, suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was threatened with a buzzing power drill. The tool was not used on him.

The White House has increase security at U.S. facilities across the globe today in preparation for a global backlash at the contents of the report.

Scroll down for video

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest sparred with reporters today over news reports claiming that Secretary of State John Kerry called the chairwoman of the Senate committee discharging the torture report to ask her to delay its distribution, arguing that Kerry 'strongly supports' the release of the declassified document 'for the same valued-based reasons that the president does'

White House Announces Release of Senate CIA Torture Report:

However the Obama administration remained committed to publishing the incendiary details, insisting that the torture program 'should never happen again'.

The report, which took years to produce, charts the history of the CIA's 'Rendition, Detention and Interrogation' program, which President George W. Bush authorised after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Most of the program was shut down by Bush before he left office, while Obama outlawed 'enhanced interrogation techniques' after his inauguration.

Yesterday a government official sparred with journalists over reports claiming that Secretary of State John Kerry tried to have the report delayed at the 11th hour.

Mr Earnest said that Kerry 'strongly supports' the release of the declassified document 'for the same valued-based reasons that the president does'.

At the same time he declined to extend the administration's proclaimed zeal for transparency to possible phone calls between the current president and former president Bush to discuss the contents of the report.
Earnest said any talks that may have taken place between Obama and Bush would remain private.

Even though the redacted paper will reportedly absolve the former president and his White House of knowledge of the extent of which the CIA was allowed terrorism suspects to be tortured in Europe and Asia in the wake of 9/11, Bush has openly opposed the the release of the document.

'We’re fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA serving on our behalf,' he told CNN’s Candy Crowley during an interview that aired Sunday.
'These are patriots. And whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off base,' he continued, calling the CIA operatives and directors about to be chastised 'really good people'.

Bush has been joined by other Republicans and members of the intelligence community in calling on the Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate's Intelligence Committee, to bag the truncated version of the still-classified 6,000 page report.

'I think this is a terrible idea,' House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rodgers, a Michigan Republican, told Crowley on Sunday.
'Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths. Foreign leaders who have approached the government say you do this, it will cause violence and deaths. Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths,' he said

According to a report, Kerry called Feinstein on Friday to voice similar concerns and asked her to keep a lid on the report

After word of Kerry's call to the California senator spread like wildfire, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement that;

Kerry 'called his former colleague to discuss the broader implications of the timing of the report's release because a lot is going on in the world.'
'He wanted to make sure that foreign policy implications were being appropriately factored into timing,' including 'our ongoing efforts against ISIL and the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world,' she said.
'That anyone would mischaracterize this call or question reasonable, proper, private discussions raises questions about what they’re trying to accomplish,' she added.

John Kerry allegedly tried to have the report delayed at the 11th hour and 'called his former colleague to discuss the broader implications of the timing of the report's release because a lot is going on in the world'

Asked today about claims that Kerry tried to get Feinstein to shelf the report, White House spokesman Earnest pointed reporters to the State Departments statements and reiterated the administration's approval of the Senate committee's decision to make public certain sections of classified document.

'I will allow Secretary Kerry to explain exactly why he made the phone call,' Earnest said.

He later stated that he stated that the legislative branch is constitutionally guaranteed oversight of the executive branch and it is 'free to exercise that oversight authority without inappropriate interference' from president and his administration.
At another point he said the White House has 'been candid from the beginning we believe it's the committee's decision to determine the appropriate timing for the release of this report.'

'The administration has taken the prudent steps to ensure that the proper security precautions are in place' and has been preparing 'for months now for this report's eventual release,' he said today.

Earnest refused to tell reporters what precautionary measures had been taken and at which embassies, saying that 'wouldn't be a wise security strategy,' but a Defense official told CNN on Monday that more than 6,000 Marines deployed abroad had been put on standby.

Pointing out that in his in his first days in office used executive action to put a stop to the harsh interrogation procedures detailed in the report, Earnest told reporters that Obama 'does not believe' they are 'justified
The president's spokesman said Obama believes that regardless of where one comes down in the debate, 'the use of these techniques was not worth it because of the harm that was done between our national values.'

Torture: The report concentrates on the activities of the CIA under the Bush administration, which also saw the establishment of a detention center at Guantanamo Bay which al Qaeda suspects continue to be held

The Obama administration official said that it doesn't matter if the torture tactics did 'unearth useful information.'
'Even if they did,' he said the president believes 'that it wasn't worth it, and it did not enhance the national security of United States of America.'
Feinstein told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published on Sunday that the interrogations undermined 'societal and constitutional values that we are very proud of.'
'Anybody who reads this is going to never let this happen again,' she said.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden on Sunday pushed back against critics of the agency's behavior under his direction during the final years of Bush's time in office, from 2006 to 2009.

'To say that we relentlessly over an expanded period of time lied to everyone about a program that wasn’t doing any good — that beggars the imagination,' he said on CBS' Face the Nation.

Hayden and other former CIA directors who served under Bush have promised to release a report of their own setting the record straight once the Senate has published the redacted document that it spent five years making.

'Once the release occurs, we’ll have things to say and will be making some documents available that bear on the case,' John McLaughlin, a former deputy director under both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush told the NY Times on Sunday.
McLaughlin, who also served as acting director of the CIA for a short time in 2004, criticized the Senate report and claimed it 'uses information selectively, often distorts to make its points, and as I recall contains no recommendations.'

White House Announces Release of Senate CIA Torture Report

RELATED:

Six Guantanamo Prisoners Arrive in Uruguay After 12 Years in US Detention Without Charge

The six men — four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian — are the first prisoners transferred to South America from the US base in Cuba
All were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda who were cleared for release in 2009 - only now would a country take them
Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the men as a humanitarian gesture while asking Obama to end Cuba embargo

9 December 2014

Six prisoners held for 12 years at Guantanamo Bay have been sent to Uruguay to be resettled as refugees, the U.S. government announced Sunday — a deal that had been delayed for months by security concerns at the Pentagon and political considerations in the South American country.

The six men — four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian — are the first prisoners transferred to South America from the U.S. base in Cuba, part of a flurry of recent releases amid a renewed push by President Barack Obama to close the prison.
All were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged. They had been cleared for release since 2009 but could not be sent home and the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to take them.

Pictured: The ambulances transporting the six detainees arriving from Guantanamo heads for the Military Hospital in Montevideo on December 7

Arrived: Six men detained at Guantanamo for more than a decade have been resettled in Uruguay, as US President Barack Obama attempts to fulfill his long-delayed promise to close the US military prison

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the men as a humanitarian gesture and said they would be given help getting established in a country with a small Muslim population.

'We are very grateful to Uruguay for this important humanitarian action, and to President Mujica for his strong leadership in providing a home for individuals who cannot return to their own countries,' U.S. State Department envoy Clifford Sloan said.

Among those transferred was Abu Wa'el Dhiab, a 43-year-old Syrian on a long-term hunger strike protesting his confinement who was at the center of a legal battle in U.S. courts over the military's use of force-feeding.

The Pentagon identified the other Syrians sent to Uruguay on Saturday as Ali Husain Shaaban, 32; Ahmed Adnan Ajuri, 37; and Abdelahdi Faraj, 39. Also released were Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Abdullah Taha Mattan, 35, and 49-year-old Adel bin Muhammad El Ouerghi of Tunisia.

Uruguayan officials declined comment Sunday on the transfers. Adriana Ramos, a receptionist at a military hospital in Montevideo, the capital, said the six men were being examined there but declined to provide any details.

Hunger strike: Among the six was Syrian prisoner Jihad Diyab, 43, who had staged a hunger strike and requested a US court to order prison officials to stop force-feeding him

Arrival: The Pentagon identified the other Syrians sent to Uruguay on Saturday as Ali Husain Shaaban, 32; Ahmed Adnan Ajuri, 37; and Abdelahdi Faraj, 39. Also released were Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Abdullah Taha Mattan, 35, and 49-year-old Adel bin Muhammad El Ouerghi of Tunisia

Cori Crider, a lawyer for Dhiab from the human rights group Reprieve, praised Mujica, a former political prisoner himself, for accepting the men.

'Despite years of suffering, Mr. Dhiab is focused on building a positive future for himself in Uruguay,' said Crider, who was heading to Montevideo to meet with him. 'He looks forward to being reunited with his family and beginning his life again.'

The U.S. has now transferred 19 prisoners out of Guantanamo this year, all but one of them within the last 30 days. Saturday's move brings the total number of prisoners still at Guantanamo to 136 — the lowest number since shortly after the prison opened in January 2002. Officials say several more releases are expected by the end of the year.

Obama administration officials had been frustrated that the transfer took so long, blaming outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for not approving the move sooner. They said after Mujica had agreed to take the men in January, the deal sat for months on Hagel's desk, awaiting his signature as required by law. The Pentagon didn't send the notification of the transfer to Congress until July.

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EXCLUSIVE: Pentagon Insider says Hagel 'Couldn't Hold His Nose Anymore' backing Obama's policies...

Senior officer close to the office of the Secretary of Defense told MailOnline that the outgoing secretary was 'relieved' to part ways with the White House
'He jumped at the chance to get out, and couldn't wait to announce it,' the well-placed source said

WINTER OF HIS DISCONTENT: Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel couldn't wait to leave, a high-ranking Pentagon officer says, because he tired of carrying President Obama's water

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URUGUAY PREZ TO OBAMA: WE'LL TAKE GITMO DETAINEES BUT PLEASE END CUBA EMBARGO

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica reiterated last week his willingness to resettle six Guantanamo prisoners in his country while calling on the United States to end its decades-old embargo against Cuba.
Mujica's open letter to President Barack Obama appeared Friday on his presidency website.
Uruguay's leader agreed earlier this year to resettle the men for humanitarian reasons. Held at the U.S. base in Cuba, they are not charged with a crime. The U.S. says they pose no threat, but cannot return to their countries.
'We have offered our hospitality for human beings who suffered an atrocious kidnapping in Guantanamo,' Mujica said Friday, hinting a transfer could occur soon.
The Pentagon in the fall gave Congress a required 30-day notice that it intended to transfer the prisoners to Uruguay, but resettlement was postponed.

Jose Mujica, President of Uruguay, speaks during the UNASUR summit in Guayaquil, Ecuador, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. Mujica reiterated his willingness to resettle six Guantanamo prisoners in his country while calling on the United States to end its decades-old embargo against Cuba

New home: A soldier stands guard at the front gate entrance to Guantanamo's Camp 6 maximum-security detention facility. Six men who called the prison home for 12 yeras have been sent to resettle in Uruguay

The public Maciel Hospital in Montevideo, where one of the six Guantanamo detainees arrived on December 7, according to local sources. Six Guantanamo detainees, including four Syrians, one Palestinian and one Tunisian, have been transferred to Uruguay

By then, the transfer had become an issue in Uruguay's political election and officials there decided to postpone it until after the vote. Tabare Vazquez, a member of Mujica's ruling coalition and a former president, won a runoff election on Nov. 30.

Upon taking office, Obama had pledged to close the prison but was blocked by Congress, which banned sending prisoners to the U.S. for any reason, including trial, and placed restrictions on sending them abroad.

The slow pace of releases has created a tense atmosphere inside the prison. A hunger strike that began in February 2013 totaled about 100 prisoners at its peak, including Dhiab and Faraj.

The U.S. now holds 67 men at Guantanamo who have been cleared for release or transfer but, like the six sent to Uruguay, can't go home because they might face persecution, a lack of security or some other reason.

Prisoners from Guantanamo have been sent around the world but this weekend's transfer was the largest group sent to the Western Hemisphere. Four Guantanamo prisoners were sent to Bermuda in 2009 and two were sent to El Salvador in 2012 but have since left.

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WHAT DOES THE PRISON AT GUANTANAMO LOOK LIKE NOW?

Here is a look at the prison on the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, following the release of six prisoners to Uruguay:

The detention center now holds 136 prisoners spread out over several camps depending on the category and behavior of the detainee. That is the lowest number since shortly after it opened in January 2002 to detain and interrogate detainees suspected of involvement in terrorism or having links to al-Qaida and the Taliban. About 600 prisoners have been released under President Barack Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, most of them sent to their home countries.

A detainee walks outside his cell in Camp Delta 4 at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. The latest move by the Obama administration comes as the president tries to make good on a years old promise to close the Cuba prison

President Obama pledged to close the prison within a year of taking office but was blocked by Congress, which has enacted legislation that prohibits transferring any prisoners to the U.S. mainland for any reason, including trial or imprisonment, and imposed rules making it harder to sending them overseas. Congress eased the transfer restrictions last year and they have resumed after a lull. The U.S. has released 19 so far this year and more releases are expected by Dec. 31.

Of the 136 still detained, there are 67 prisoners who have been determined to be suitable for release by a task force of U.S. government agencies. Some of these men can't go back to their homelands for reasons that include the possibility that they could face persecution or torture or because the U.S. considers their countries too unstable to provide adequate guarantees that they can be monitored and kept from engaging in militant activity.

The remaining prisoners pose the biggest challenge to any effort to close the detention center. They are a mix of prisoners who have either been deemed too dangerous to release or are at some stage of the process of trial by military commission. This last group includes five men charged with terrorism and other crimes for their alleged roles in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Their case is in the pre-trial stage and no date has been set for the death penalty trial.

Ladybbird · 12-12-14, 18:24

Al Qaeda Suspects Were Kept Awake in 'Stress Positions' for 180 Hours,
-Subjected to Rectal Feeding and Waterboarded until They Vomited

'When We Make Mistakes, We Admit Them': Obama Defends Release of CIA Torture Report

Senate Intelligence Committe report claims CIA tortured al-Qaeda suspects
Torture 'involved waterboarding, rectal feeding and no sleep for 180 hours'
One suspect reportedly died of hypothermia naked and chained to a floor
Meanwhile, at least five were 'rectal fed' as a method of behavioral control
Detainees in the 'dungeon' were constantly shackled in isolation, complete darkness with constant loud music and only a bucket for human waste
Of the 119 known detainees that were in CIA custody during the life of the program, at least 26 were wrongfully held, the 500-page document reveals
President Barack Obama admitted the CIA tactics were 'brutal' and 'wrong'
But he said release of the report will make sure it does not happen again
The CIA 'enhanced interrogation techniques' did not thwart terrorist plots
The brutal interrogations took place at either CIA-run secret prisons known as 'black sites' or the Guantanamo Bay U.S. military base in Cuba
On Tuesday, CIA directors argued interrogations 'saved thousands of lives'

Daily Mail UK, 10 December 2014

President Barack Obama has defended the release of a report that claims the CIA tortured al-Qaeda suspects with rectal feeding, waterboarding and threats to abuse their children and mothers.

Speaking to local Spanish media, Obama admitted that some of the tactics used by agency officers in the highly-controversial Senate report were 'brutal' 'wrong' and 'counterproductive'.
But he said releasing the information to the public was an important step in the process of ensuring that such a scenario is never repeated, saying that America willingly 'admits' to its mistakes.

The shocking 500-page report, released by the Democratic-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, includes claims that one suspect died of hypothermia while naked chained to a floor.

Meanwhile, at least five detainees were rectally-fed their meals as a method of behavioral control at 'black sites' or the Guantanamo military base in Cuba, the declassified document alleges.

Scroll down for video

Defense: President Barack Obama (pictured) has defended the release of a report that claims the CIA tortured al-Qaeda suspects with rectal feeding, waterboarding and threats to abuse their children and mothers

Others were reportedly held in 'stress positions' for 180 hours - and one interrogator told a detainee he would never go to court, 'because we can never let the world know what I have done to you'.

Defending the document's release, Obama told the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo: 'One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them.'

He added that the long-delayed report makes clear that the interrogation program - which was in effect during the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush - was created too hastily.

'The CIA set up something very fast without a lot of forethought to what the ramifications might be,' said Obama, who banned the use of the tactics shortly after taking office nearly six years ago.
'That the lines of accountability that needed to be set up were not always in place. Some of these techniques that were described were not only wrong, but also counterproductive.
'We know that often, when somebody is being subjected to these kinds of techniques, that they're willing to say anything in order to alleviate the pain and the stress that they're feeling.'

Detainees: Majid Khan, pictured top, in 1999, was 'rectally fed' a pureed lunch of pasta, sauce and hummus as a method of behavior control, according to the highly-controversial and long-delayed report, while Abu Zubaydah was left 'completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth' after waterboarding

Global: At its height, the CIA program included secret prisons in countries including Afghanistan, Thailand, Romania, Lithuania and Poland — locations that are referred to only by color-themed codes in the report

In an official statement, he added: 'I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.'

On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat chair of the intelligence committee, said on Capitol Hill that the torture was 'a stain on our values and on our history'.

The document included conclusions of a still-secret, 6,700-page report, the results of a five-year, $40 million investigation, which showed that the CIA lied to cover up torture.

The report concluded 'the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' didn't produce results where it really mattered - most importantly, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the thwarting of terrorist attacks.

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One of the things that sets us apart from other countries is that when we make mistakes, we admit them
President Barack Obama

After reviewing 6 million agency documents, investigators could find no example of unique and life-saving intelligence gleaned from the coercive techniques that in some cases left detainees hallucinating and suicidal.

During his interview with Telemundo, Obama admitted some of the tactics written about in the report were 'brutal, and as I've said before, constituted torture, in my mind.'
'And that's not who we are,' he added.

But he said releasing the report means America 'can account for it, so that people understand precisely why I banned these practices as one of the first acts I took when I came into office, and hopefully make sure that we don't make those mistakes again.'

The U.S. military was on high alert around the world on Tuesday after ugly details of American torture techniques were released.

Meanwhile, six former Directors and Deputy Directors of the CIA fired back at the report, claiming it was 'one-sided and marred with errors' and the interrogation program 'saved thousands of lives'.

In a 2,500 rebuttal, sent to the The Washington Post, they also called the document 'a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.'

Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, who the U.S. believe to be the principal architect of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times and to the point of drowning, according to the report, released by the Senate Intelligence Committee

RECTAL FEEDING AND HYDRATION

Detainees were subjected to 'rectal feeding' and 'rectal rehydration' - an enema administered with the intent of providing nutrition when normal feeding is not possible, common in 19th-century medicine.

One detainee Majid Khan was placed in a forward-facing position with his head lower than his torso and his lunch, consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce and raisins was 'pureed' and rectally infused while in .

Khan, who joined al Qaeda after graduating from high school in Baltimore, Maryland, admitted to plotting to blow up gasoline tanks in the U.S.
The terrorist struck a plea bargain and is serving 19 years in return for his full cooperation with authorities after pleading guilty to five war crimes, including murder, attempted murder and spying.

However sentencing was delayed for four years, and if Khan fails to cooperate, he could receive up to 25 years

He is reportedly still at Guantanamo after being held at a secret location in Afghanistan for several years.

A section of the 500-page, Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed the horrifying details of a prisoner being rectally fed

WATERBOARDING

The CIA claimed at one interrogation site never to have waterboarded a suspect - only for the Senate Intelligence Committee to uncover a photograph of a waterboard surrounded by buckets of water.
In 2013, the CIA could not explain the presence of a well-worn waterboard at another site.

Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, whom the U.S. believes was the architect of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times to the point where it became 'a series of near drownings', according to CIA internal documents.

Terrorist Abu Zubaydah was left 'completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth' after waterboarding.

SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND STRESS POSITIONS FOR DETAINEES WITH BROKEN FEET AND LEGS

The torture technique was used alongside other brutal methods of interrogation.
Detainees were often kept awake for 180 hours at a time often in stress positions, naked and with hands shackled.

One detainee had been chained to the wall in a standing position for 17 days. According to the CIA interrogator, some of the prisoners looked like 'dogs that had been kenneled'.

Another had his hands shackled to an overhead bar for 22 hours each days for more than two consecutive days, in order to 'break resistance'.
At one facility, known as the 'Cobalt' facility or the 'dungeon', the CIA made certain detainees who had broken feet or legs to stand in stress-inducing positions.

One detainee with a prosthetic leg was shackled in the standing position for a bout of sleep deprivation until medical personnel assessed that he could not maintain the position.

Redha al-Najar, a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard and one of the first and innocent prisoners, was hooded and subjected to round-the-clock music or interrogations to prevent him from sleeping - though there was no indication he was resisting interrogators.

A month later, CIA questioners found al-Najjar a 'broken man' and on the verge of a 'complete breakdown'.

But the treatment got worse, with officials lowering his food ration, keeping him shackled in the cold and giving him a diaper instead of toilet access, the report said.

Graphic charting global attitudes to torture and details from former prisoners on stress positions, according to an Amnesty International survey published in May

TEMPERATURE TORTURE

One suspect died of hypothermia while naked and chained to a floor while others received 'ice baths'.

Gul Rahman a member of Hezb-e Islami - an Afghan terrorist organisation, was shackled to the wall of his cell, that required him to rest on the bare, concrete floor while wearing only a sweatshirt. A CIA officer had ordered his clothing be removed when he was judged to be uncooperative during an earlier interrogation.
The next day, officers found Rahman's dead body. An autopsy found that he likely died from hypothermia.

Rahman was captured in October 2002 and held at a secret location, known as the 'Salt Pit' in northern Kabul, Afghanistan, while temperatures were close to freezing.He died within a month.

Justice Department investigations into that and another death of a CIA detainee resulted in no charges.

White House advisor side steps question on torture

Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees captured in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks were transferred to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba

A 'feeding chair' on the U.S. military bae at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for the forced feeding for detainees on hunger strike

SEXUAL ABUSE THREATS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL GAMES

Detainees were hooded and dragged up and down corridors while being slapped, punched and receiving 'wallings' - being throwing against walls. They were routinely forced to walk around naked.

The families of suspects were threatened - with some being told that their mothers would be sexually abused and their children harmed.

One suspect was blindfolded and had a cordless drill turned on near his head but he was not injured.

One operative engaged in 'Russian Roulette' with a detainee.

Others were locked in small boxes or kept in dark cells alone for weeks at a time with loud noise or music being played constantly.

The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to custody alive – suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box.

One interrogator told another detainee that he would never go to court, 'because we can never let the world know what I have done to you'.

HOW THE CIA LIED ABOUT 26 WRONGFULLY HELD VICTIMS - BROUGHT IN ON BAD INFORMATION EXTRACTED FROM OTHER TORTURED SUSPECTS

Of the 119 known detainees that were in CIA custody during the life of the program, at least 26 were wrongfully held.

The agency said it detained 'fewer than 100 individuals', but a review of agency records indicated that it held 119. It also under-reported the number of detainees who were subjected to torture.

These included an 'intellectually challenged' who was used as leverage to get a family member to provide information and two individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services and were former CIA sources.

Two individuals' connection to al-Qaeda was based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee being brutally tortured.

CIA USED 'UNQUALIFED, DISHONEST AND IMMATURE' OFFICERS TO RUN DETENTION SITES

Due to 'poor record-keeping', a full account of how many specific CIA detainees were held and how they were specifically treated while in custody may never be known.
The CIA's management of the detainee program was 'inadequate and deeply flawed', according to findings.

A junior officer was placed in charge of one facility - where few formal records were kept on detainees and interrogations took place unsupervised.
Operatives were not adequately trained or vetted and the CIA also used officers with histories of violence or the abuse of others.

CIA PAID $80Mill TO PSYCHOLOGISTS WITH NO EXPERIENCE IN INTERROGATION OR AL QAEDA

The CIA contracted two outside psychologists for the interrogations - but neither had any experience in interrogation, counter-terrorism in particularly relating to al Qaeda or even language skills.

Two psychologists, who helped develop the CIA's enhanced interrogation procedures, founded a company in 2005 to help run the program.
Between 2005 and 2009, the company pulled about $81 million from the government.

The psychologists were previously involved in the Air Force's 'Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school' and neither had 'specialized knowledge of al-Qa'ida, a background in counterterrorism, or any relevant cultural or linguistic expertise,' according to the Senate committee's report.

And before founding the company, one of the psychologists recommended the use of coercive interrogation in the case of Gul Rahman, days before Rahman was found dead of suspected hypothermia in 2002.

Investigators deliver damning indictment of CIA practices

NONE OF THE INFORMATION EXTRACTED FROM DETAINEES PROVED USEFUL IN THE TRACKING DOWN OF BIN LADEN

After reviewing 6 million agency documents, investigators found no case of unique and life-saving intelligence gleaned from the interrogation techniques used on the detainees. On the biggest anti-terrorism success of all, the 2011 killing of bin Laden, the investigators dismiss the idea that such techniques proved decisive.

HOW PRESIDENT BUSH AND THE WHITE HOUSE WERE KEPT IN THE DARK

'The C.I.A. repeatedly provided incomplete and inaccurate information' to the White House, the report concludes.

For four years, from 2002-2006, the CIA used interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and beatings to torture prisoners, but the president was not briefed on these methods until 2006, by which point three dozen detainees had fallen victim to them.

Emails, reports, memos and other documents studied by the Senate committee paint a picture of a White House that condoned the brutal questioning of suspects but was kept in the dark about many aspects of the program, including whether it really worked.

CIA records state that prior to the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah in 2002, the CIA did not brief Secretary of State Colin Powell or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on the techniques.

WHAT THE REPORT DOESN'T SAY

Commenting on the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture, Clare Algar, Executive Director at international human rights NGO Reprieve said

'This is a good start, but it is far from the whole picture. The names of many victims of rendition and torture are absent – not least that of Khadija al Saadi, who was just 12 years old when she was 'rendered'
along with her entire family to Gaddafi's Libya, in a joint CIA – MI6 operation. We are still a long way from acknowledging the horrors of the CIA's torture programme, and achieving real accountability.'

Quote:

'I WILL CONTINUE TO USE MY AUTHORITY AS PRESIDENT TO MAKE SURE WE NEVER RESORT TO THOSE METHODS AGAIN': PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FULL OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON CIA TORTURE REPORT

'Throughout our history, the United States of America has done more than any other nation to stand up for freedom, democracy, and the inherent dignity and human rights of people around the world. As Americans, we owe a profound debt of gratitude to our fellow citizens who serve to keep us safe, among them the dedicated men and women of our intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the horrific attacks of 9/11, these public servants have worked tirelessly to devastate core al Qaeda, deliver justice to Osama bin Laden, disrupt terrorist operations and thwart terrorist attacks. Solemn rows of stars on the Memorial Wall at the CIA honor those who have given their lives to protect ours. Our intelligence professionals are patriots, and we are safer because of their heroic service and sacrifices.

In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country. As I have said before, our nation did many things right in those difficult years. At the same time, some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values. That is why I unequivocally banned torture when I took office, because one of our most effective tools in fighting terrorism and keeping Americans safe is staying true to our ideals at home and abroad.

Today's report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence details one element of our nation's response to 9/11 - the CIA's detention and interrogation program, which I formally ended on one of my first days in office. The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests. Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America's standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.

As Commander in Chief, I have no greater responsibility than the safety and security of the American people. We will therefore continue to be relentless in our fight against al Qaeda, its affiliates and other violent extremists. We will rely on all elements of our national power, including the power and example of our founding ideals. That is why I have consistently supported the declassification of today's report. No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better. Rather than another reason to refight old arguments, I hope that today's report can help us leave these techniques where they belong—in the past. Today is also a reminder that upholding the values we profess doesn't make us weaker, it makes us stronger and that the United States of America will remain the greatest force for freedom and human dignity that the world has ever known.'

COMPETING CLAIMS OF TORTURE EFFECTIVENESS

The CIA said U.S. citizen Jose Padilla was implicated in the so-called Dirty Bomb/Tall Buildings plotting. Terror leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammad tasked Padilla in 2002 with conducting an operation using natural gas to explode tall buildings in the United States, later known as the 'Tall Buildings Plot'.

Over the next few years, the CIA cited the capture of Padilla before he could pull off such a plot as a prime example of how 'key intelligence collected from (High Value Detainee) interrogations after applying interrogation techniques' had 'enabled CIA to disrupt terrorist plots' and 'capture additional terrorists'. It also said the information was otherwise unavailable and saved lives.

The Senate report says the CIA first received reporting on the threat posed by Padilla from a foreign government.
Eight days later, al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah gave the FBI information on the plot without names, four months before the CIA began using its harsh interrogation techniques on Zubaydah, and after the intelligence community had concluded that Padilla's plots were infeasible.

+11

President George W. Bush with Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House to discuss the 9/11 attacks on September 12, 2001 in Washington. The former VP has staunchly defended the interrogation program

McCain calls CIA practices ineffective in war against terrorism

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Eight Terror Plots Which Were NOT Stopped by Torture: -Senate Report Rubbishes CIA Claims

The CIA torture of al-Qaeda detainees provided eight 'primary' examples in which the agency claimed it obtained good intelligence from'enhanced interrogation techniques'.
However, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded, in its report published on Tuesday, that the information was available elsewhere and without resorting to brutal interrogations.

JOSE PADILLA: The CIA said using 'enhanced methods' on this U.S. citizen, who was implicated in the so-called Dirty Bomb/Tall Buildings plotting, saved lives. Senate report revealed they already had information on his plot when he was captured.

THE KARACHI PLOTS: CIA claimed in 2007 that a plan to conduct attacks against the U.S. consulate and other U.S. interests in Pakistan was disrupted after waterboarding suspects.
Senate report said the Karachi Plot was disrupted with the confiscation of explosives and the arrests of two terrorists with Pakistani authorities in 2003.

IYMAN FARIS: The CIA said the brutal interrogation of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed led them to identify an Ohio truck driver,Iyman Faris, who later pleaded guilty to terrorism charges.
The Senate report said Faris, a Pakistani who moved to the U.S. in 1994, had already been on the FBI's radar screen even before the 9/11 attacks. Mohammed recognized photos of Faris and Majid Khan and said he had asked Faris to find equipment to loosen the nuts and bolts of suspension bridges in the United States. Faris told him he wasn't able to find the tools.

SAJID BADAT: The CIA said waterboarding helped it confirm that Sajid Badat, a British citizen, was the terrorist assigned to carry out the shoe-bombing attack against a commercial flight from Paris to Miami with Richard Reid in December 2001.
The Senate report said Badat was identified by British domestic investigative efforts, reports from foreign intelligence services and the U.S. military and efforts by international law enforcement. Badat told al Qaeda leaders he backed out of the plot.
The FBI said it became aware that Reid had a partner who backed out as early as January 2002, phone-calling cards used by Reid were linked to Badat and a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay in September 2003 identified Badat as a 'shoe bomber.' Badat was arrested in November and confirmed his role in the shoe bomb operation; he was sentenced to 13 years in prison but has been released in exchange for cooperating with authorities.

MOHAMMED, HAMBALI, and THE KARACHI 'CELL' (THE AL-GHURABA GROUP): The CIA said interrogations of two brothers led to the discovery in 2003 of a joint effort by al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah to fly hijacked planes into the tallest buildings on America's West Coast.
The Senate report said one of the brothers, in the custody of a foreign government, didn't identify a cell of operatives sent to Karachi for an operation. Instead, he identified a group of Malaysian and Indonesian students in Karachi who knew he was a member of Jemaah Islamiyah. CIA officers on site cited other intelligence indicating Mohammed planned to use Malaysians in a 'next wave of attacks' and linked the brother's answer to that information. When the second brother was given enhanced interrogation, he said Mohammed asked for as many pilots as possible. Months later, he told a debriefer he made it up to 'reduce pressure on himself' by giving an account consistent with what questioners wanted to hear.

UK URBAN TARGETS PLOT: The CIA said 'enhanced interrogations' helped capture Dhiren Barot, also known as Issa al-Hindi, in 2004 and thwart a series of terrorist attacks in Britain. In a document prepared for the president, it highlighted the particular effectiveness of waterboarding in leading to the disruption of the cell.
The Senate report said identification of Issa came from a British investigation.

HEATHROW AIRPORT PLOT: The CIA said after it captured Mohammed in 2003, it learned that Mohammed wanted to target the U.K. by hijacking multiple airplanes leaving from Heathrow, then turn them around and crash them into the airport. This would have killed thousands of people, the CIA said.The CIA said that it was Mohammed's arrest that 'most disrupted' the Heathrow plot.;
The Senate report said the Heathrow Airport and Canary Wharf plot had not been fully hatched beyond initial planning stages when Mohammed and others were detained. The CIA was aware of the plot before any information was gleaned from the detainees.

HAMBALI: The CIA said enhanced interrogation techniquesused on Mohammed led to the 'first' information about a money transfer that led to the capture of Hambali, also known as Riduan bin Isomuddin. Hambali was a member of a terror group in Southeast Asia called Jemaah Islamiyah, which had ties to al-Qaeda. Hambali was implicated in the October 2002 Bali bombings.
The Senate report said Hambali's capture in Thailand was a result of an intercepted email, a CIA source and Thai investigators.

Since coming to office in 2009, President Obama has sought to distance the U.S. from past deeds and outlawed harsh interrogation techniques which he has denounced as 'torture.'

'We tortured some folks,' Obama said in August, talking about the contents of the report.

The CIA's defenders insist the methods saved American lives by helping to uncover al-Qaeda's network, while critics say they ran contrary to U.S. values and hardened anti-American attitudes.

Former Bush vice president Dick Cheney staunchly defended the interrogation program, telling the New York Times it was 'absolutely, totally justified'.
He denied the CIA withheld any information, and emphasized the program had been vetted by the Justice Department.

'As far as I'm concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticized,' he said of the CIA interrogators.
'When we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from any more mass casualty attacks, which was our objective,' he said.

Quote:

CIA DIRECTORS DEFEND INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES THAT 'SAVED THOUSANDS OF LIVES' BY LEADING TO CAPTURE OF TOP TERRORISTS

Six former CIA Directors and Deputy Directors have hit back at the Senate report, claiming it was 'a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation'.

In a 2,500 rebuttal, the officials argued the CIA's interrogation program 'saved thousands of lives' by helping lead to the capture of top Al-Qaeda operatives.
They also said it 'led to the disruption of terrorist plots', aided the government's knowledge of Al-Qaeda and informed the agency's approaches on 'how best to attack and thwart' the group.
In the statement, the former directors described the report as 'a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.'

Response: This is an extract from the former CIA Directors and Deputy Directors' rebuttal

They cited the Navy SEALs' mission to the Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, as an example of when the interrogation program was particularly beneficial.
'The CIA never would have focused on the individual who turned out to be bin Laden’s personal courier without the detention and interrogation program,' they wrote.
They concluded: 'So the bottom line is this: The interrogation program formed an essential part of the foundation from which the CIA and the U.S. military mounted the bin Laden operation.'
The rebuttal is the first opportunity for the former intelligence chiefs to respond to the allegations made in the report - none of them were interviewed by the Senate for the document.

Even though the redacted paper will absolved Bush and his White House of knowledge to the extent of which the CIA allowed terrorism suspects to be tortured in Europe and Asia in the wake of 9/11, Bush has openly opposed the release of the document.

'We're fortunate to have men and women who work hard at the CIA serving on our behalf,' he told CNN's Candy Crowley during an interview that aired on Sunday.
'These are patriots. And whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it is way off base,' he continued, calling the CIA operatives and directors about to be chastised 'really good people'.

The investigation began in 2009 and took three years to complete. The full report is 6,200 pages and has 35,000 footnotes. After negotiations and security concerns, this was reduced to 500 pages with redactions.

The committee's chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, sparred for months with the administration over proposed redactions.
Feinstein said on Monday she wanted Americans reading the report to see that 'when we make mistakes we admit them... and we move on'.
In April, the Senate committee voted overwhelmingly to release a reportedly severely critical 500-page executive summary and 20 conclusions of the secret document.

According to the report, the two psychologists contracted by the CIA to design the enhanced interrogation techniques were paid more than $80 million, even though they were never themselves interrogators

'On the CIA's behalf, the contract psychologists developed theories of interrogation based on 'learned helplessness,' and developed the list of enhanced interrogation techniques that was approved for use against [al Qaeda operative] Abu Zubaydah and subsequent CIA detainees,' the report says.

By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.

In 2009, ABC News identified the psychologists as former military officers Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

Today Mitchell told the media outlet:

'I think it's despicable that they cherry-picked all of that stuff.
'There were a lot of men and women in the CIA who put their lives on the line, and some of them died after 9/11 protecting the United States.
'And to suggest that they lied to the President, that they lied to the Senate, that they falsified intel reports so they could make a program look better than it was, is despicable.'

The CIA TORTURE Report and its' Entire Findings are available...,to view it
CLICK >> here:

Torture Shame

White House Advisor Side Steps Question on Torture;

Investigators Deliver Damning Indictment of CIA Practices

Whistleblower Edward Snowden on CIA Torture Report: US Commited Inexcusable Crimes

McCain Calls CIA Practices Ineffective in War Against Terrorism

Poland: We Hosted Secret CIA Torture Prison

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Ladybbird · 15-01-15, 12:59

CIA Clears OWN Staff of Snooping Senate Computers

Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said she was disappointed with the outcome

BBC 15 January 2015

A CIA internal watchdog has cleared agency officers of improperly accessing the computers of members of the US Senate intelligence committee.
It said CIA officers acted reasonably in searching computers after concerns they contained classified material.

Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Va. Senate investigators have delivered a damning indictment of CIA interrogation practices after the 9/11 attacks, accusing the agency of inflicting pain and suffering on prisoners with tactics that went well beyond legal limits. The torture report released Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the CIA deceived the nation with its insistence that the harsh interrogation tactics had saved lives. It says those claims are unsubstantiated by the CIA's own records.

The finding contradicts allegations from lawmakers and an admission from the agency's own inspector general.
The allegations came during the intelligence committee's investigation into claims of torture by the CIA.

'Inappropriate access'

An internal board launched an inquiry after the CIA appealed against findings by David Buckley, the agency's inspector general, that employees had "improperly" gained access to computers used by Senate staff.
It concluded that although there had been some "inappropriate access" to a secured network being used by Senate workers, there had been no wrongdoing and no law violated.

Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate intelligence committee, who has clashed with the CIA over the issue, rejected the board's findings.

"I'm disappointed that no-one at the CIA will be held accountable," she said in a statement.
"The decision was made to search committee computers, and someone should be found responsible for those actions," she added.

The board's conclusion comes a week after Mr Buckley said he was stepping down from his post, but officials said his resignation was unrelated to anything he had investigated.

The Senate staff had been using computers at a CIA facility to examine documents related to the agency's interrogation practices following the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Those documents formed the basis of a damning report, released in December 2014, which found the CIA had carried out "brutal" interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.

Quote:

Guantanamo Bay camp, where many interrogations were carried out
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has released a summary of a report into the CIA interrogation program established by US spy chiefs after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001.

The full report is 6,000 pages long and the unclassified summary is 525 pages - but it highlights 20 key findings:

What did the Senate committee find out?

1) The CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining co-operation from detainees.
2)The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
3) The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.

4) The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
5) The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
6) The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the programme.
7) The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
8) The CIA's operation and management of the programme complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other executive branch agencies.
9) The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA's Office of Inspector General.
10) The CIA co-ordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.
11) The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
12) The CIA's management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the programme's duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
13) Two contract psychologists devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the programme.

14) CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorised by CIA headquarters.
15) The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA's claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
16) The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
17) The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.
18) The CIA marginalised and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
19) The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorised press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
20) The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States' standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs

Protestors demonstrate against US torture policy.

Press/Media Reaction:

With the Senate report on US interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects now in the public record, debate has shifted from hypothetical to the concrete.

In the hours after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee document was posted on the internet, journalists and interested parties began poring over the 500-page executive summary, highlighting its most controversial findings and drawing conclusions about its relevance.

"The core narrative that describes a barbarous, calculated, and sustained corruption of both our national values and our most fundamental moral principles is simple," writes Kevin Drum of Mother Jones. "We tortured prisoners, and then we lied about it. That's it."

The report is brutal, write the Daily Beast's Shane Harris and Tim Mak: "Interrogations that lasted for days on end. Detainees forced to stand on broken legs, or go 180 hours in a row without sleep. A prison so cold, one suspect essentially froze to death."

Quote:

The CIA could not borrow methods from a torture programme that was successful at eliciting factual information because no such programme exists”
Max Fisher Vox

Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson says the "rectal rehydration, without evidence of medical necessity" that some detainees underwent was "sexual assault, plus water".

Beyond the moral repugnancy of the specific examples cited, writes Vox's Max Fisher, the report shows that there was a "disastrous flaw" in the CIA's interrogation programme.

Many observers have noted with shock that the US government paid $81m (£52m) to two Air Force survival school psychologists who knew little about interrogation techniques or al-Qaeda. It's what they did know, Fisher writes, that's the most disturbing, however.

The two trained pilots on how to survive interrogation at the hands of brutal captors - which meant their interrogation programme was, in effect, a recreation of these cruel tactics.

"It was based on copying Chinese torture methods designed not to elicit truth but to force false confessions," he writes.

"The CIA could not borrow methods from a torture programme that was successful at eliciting factual information because no such programme exists, nor will it ever," he continues.

Does the Senate report on interrogations tarnish the CIA's image?

Other journalists took particular exception to the portion of the report that detailed how the CIA's public affairs department attempted to shape media coverage of the agency's practices.

"The government hates leaks of classified information. Except when it doesn't," writes the New York Times's Matt Apuzzo.

"The Senate report describes a CIA effort to reveal favourable classified information as a way to bolster support for its interrogation and detention programme," he continues. "Unlike other, unfavourable, stories that prompted leak investigations, reporter subpoenas and prison sentences, these disclosures led everyone to look the other way."

The Intercept's Dan Froomkin says the report shows that many of the reporters covering the CIA story weren't misled, they were willing participants in a deception.

"Many of the same news organisations you are trusting today to accurately inform you about the torture report were either naive or knowing dupes in a CIA misinformation campaign orchestrated by top CIA officials, that included leaks of information that was amazingly enough both classified and inaccurate at the same time," he writes.

Conservatives and former George W Bush Administration officials have countered the flood of criticism in part by noting that the report is the product of Senate Democrats who did not interview the CIA officials responsible for designing and implementing the interrogation programme (why those interviews didn't happen is an open question).

"There are two sides to every story, including this one," tweets former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer.

"Would a congressional report written almost exclusively by GOP staff ever be treated as 'the Senate report' on anything?" asks the Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes.

Quote:

The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation”
Former CIA officials The Wall Street Journal

A little over an hour after the report's release, the Wall Street Journal's website published an opinion piece in which former CIA Directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden and Deputy Directors John E McLaughlin, Albert Calland and Stephen R. Kappe defend their agency's record.

They call the report "a missed opportunity to deliver a serious and balanced study of an important public policy question".

"The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation - essentially a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks," they write.

They contend, contrary to the report's findings, that the interrogation programme "helped us disrupt, capture or kill terrorists". Its legality was clearly established by the US Justice Department, they continue, and the allegation that CIA representatives misled Congress and administration officials is "flat-out wrong".

The authors of the Senate report forget the sense of urgency that existed in the days after the 9/11 attacks, they write.

"In this atmosphere, time was of the essence and the CIA felt a deep responsibility to ensure that an attack like 9/11 would never happen again," they say. "CIA officers knew that many would later question their decisions - as we now see - but they also believed that they would be morally culpable for the deaths of fellow citizens if they failed to gain information that could stop the next attacks."

For further information, the article directs readers to CIA Saved Lives. The website, run by "a group of former CIA officials with hundreds of years of combined service", further builds on the criticisms of the Senate Committee laid out in the Wall Street Journal.

"The committee selectively used documents to try to substantiate a point of view where ample and contrary evidence existed," they write. "Over five years and at a cost of $40m [£25m], the staff "cherry picked" through 6 million pages of documents to produce an answer they knew the majority wanted. In the intelligence profession, that is called politicisation."

In addition both the Senate committee's Republican minority and the CIA itself have now released competing reports.

As has become typical of Washington political debates, there's a "truth" out there for every opinion.......

.

Ladybbird · 27-08-20, 15:41

DEA Agent Whose Brutal Death Featured in Narcos was BETRAYED by CIA Agent, according to key Witnesses in 1985 case

Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena, 37, was abducted, tortured and killed in 1985 while working with the DEA in Mexico
Several Mexican drug lords and their henchman were eventually convicted of Camarena's murder
Two of the henchmen were freed after forensic evidence was thrown out, and several witnesses were recently re-interviewed about the case
Three separate witnesses say a CIA agent and a DEA official were involved in the plot to kill Camarena

A CIA operative conspired with a drug kingpin to plan the brutal murder of a DEA Agent, according to multiple witnesses who have been re-interviewed about the 1985 case.

Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena, 37, was working for the US government in Guadalajara, Mexico when he was abducted, tortured and killed by cartel members in February 1985.

Camarena's death was thought to have been ordered by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, a drug lord known as The Godfather, who controlled trafficking along the US-Mexico border.

However, bombshell new testimony from three men who worked as security guards for the cartel kingpin tells a more sinister story.

According to a report in USA Today, 'US Justice Department agents and prosecutors have obtained statements from the witnesses implicating a Central Intelligence Agency operative and a DEA official in the plot to torture and murder Camarena'.

Camarena's widow and the mother of his three sons, Mika, told the publication: 'I want the truth to be out. At this point, nothing would surprise me.'

The Last Narc - Netflix, Aired 31 July 2020

Former cartel insiders divulge the bone-chilling details behind the notorious murder and kidnapping of DEA Agent "Kiki" Camarena.
- Hector Berrellez, Geneva Camarena, Jorge Godoy

Daily Mail UK / MEA World Wide / LA Times / AP, 27 AUG 2020.

The CIA tried to have The Last Narc cancelled -DEA agent Hector Berrellez says ‘CIA took it off’. It shows the wide corruption between the US-
(G.Bush Snr, Ex Director of the CIA) & Mexican Officials

The Last Narc (2020– )

The Last Narc S1 - FULL SERIES

Code: [Check Download Links]

https://rapidgator.net/file/4cfb6eca4ecad8596dc13526f680c457/The.Last.Narc.S01E01.WEBRip.x264-ION10.mp4.html https://rapidgator.net/file/8aa2131874e8c721915e901a4f73628c/The.Last.Narc.S01E02.WEBRip.x264-ION10.mp4.html https://rapidgator.net/file/bb598a600fdf1b7ce06dfac0dbcfb838/The.Last.Narc.S01E03.WEBRip.x264-ION10.mp4.html https://rapidgator.net/file/c6d9e59b2250f6b3b834189b4316856d/The.Last.Narc.S01E04.WEBRip.x264-ION10.mp4.html

EXCLUSIVE ‘The Last Narc’ has been cancelled? DEA agent Hector Berrellez says ‘CIA took it off’

In an exclusive interview with MEA World Wide (MEAWW), Berrellez spilled the beans behind the delay in the release of ‘The Last Narc’

By Jyotsna Basotia, MEA World Wide 15 May, 2020

Hector Berrellez in ‘The Last Narc’ (Amazon Studios)

Mexico’s second-largest metropolis, Guadalajara, is known for its sunny weather, tequila and mariachi music. Thirty-five years ago, it was not the same. In 1985, the colonial city was the base for most of the major narcotics traffickers.

On February 7, 1985, DEA Agent Kiki Camarena walked back to his truck to meet his wife, Mika, but he was abducted in broad daylight and scooted off to a quaint residence located at 881 Lope de Vega in the Colonia of Jardines del Bosque. The couple was planning to move to San Diego after spending four years in the drug hub of Mexico City. But fate had different plans for them.

Camarena was captured by drug kingpins Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Ernesto ‘Don Neto’ Fonseca and Rafael Caro Quintero. Over a long period of 30 hours, he was tortured and brutally murdered. After the gruesome act, his body was found a month later, wrapped in plastic and dumped outside the small town of La Angostura, in the state of Michoacán.

DEA Agent Kiki Camarena and his wife, Mika

Camarena is pictured with wife Mika and two of their sons shortly before his death

His skull was punctured by a metal object, and his ribs were broken. Painting the gritty real-life tale on screen, ‘The Last Narc’ delves into the true story behind the barbaric slaughter of DEA Agent Kiki Camarena and talks about how one killing began a ruthless war.

The four-part docuseries was supposed to drop on May 15, 2020, but it was suddenly postponed without a clear release date for the future. Shockingly, the trailer has also been deleted from YouTube. Directed by Tiller Russell, the documentary had been in the making for 14 long years and features exclusive snippets of conversation with DEA Agents Hector Berrellez and Phil Jordan.

In an exclusive interview with MEA World Wide (MEAWW), Berrellez spilled the truth behind the delay. “CIA took it off,” he blatantly said. “They pressured Amazon to take it off because of national security. It's been canceled forever and it's a coverup and they don't want the truth to come out.” Why did the producers say yes? “I don't know what the truth is,” he said. When asked if there was news that it's being postponed, he said he had been told it's been cancelled.

One of the major talking points of the entire fiasco is the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Camarena. While there is no major proof, there have been quite a few accusations in the past.

Earlier, in an exclusive interview with MEA World Wide, DEA Agents Jordan and Berrellez had said, “It is well documented that during that time period, when Kiki was tortured and murdered, the CIA was complicit in bringing tons of cocaine, selling the cocaine to the godfathers of the drug trade and then using that money to buy arms to fight the Iran Contra war.”

Shedding light on how long he had worked on the idea, filmmaker Russell — who has helmed documentaries like ‘Operation Odessa’, ‘The Seven Five’ and has an upcoming feature film ‘Silk Road’ ready — told IndieWire, “It’s a story I’ve been wanting to tell for about 14 years.”

‘The Last Narc’ (Amazon Studios)

He added, “I’ve been carefully biding my time until I had a great canvas on which to tell it and access to the people involved.” Talking about Berrellez, Russell told TV Insider, “He braved threats from his own government and a spot on the cartel hit list to tell his story. He reveals what he uncovered about the players involved on both sides of the border.”

Peeling the myriad layers of myth and mystery hidden behind the story, the documentary also features Camarena’s widow Mika and other insiders, including Jorge Godoy, Ramón Lira, René Lopez, Manny Madrano, Conseulo 'Chatita' Berrellez, Jaime Kuykendall, Mike Holm and Jim White.

Reminiscing the horrors from the past, Mika says in an emotional clip, “Kiki always wanted to do the right thing, at 18 he wanted to be an FBI agent. I remember the children coming home and I had to tell them he had been tortured.”

With the ambiguity around its release and cancellation, there seems to be a bigger motive at hand.

ORIGINAL REPORT:

Quote:

Informant Puts CIA at Ranch of Agent’s Killer

By HENRY WEINSTEIN, TIMES STAFF WRITER, July 5, 1990

The Central Intelligence Agency trained Guatemalan guerrillas in the early 1980s at a ranch near Veracruz, Mexico, owned by drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the murderers of U.S. drug agent Enrique Camarena, according to a Drug Enforcement Administration report made public in Los Angeles.

The report is based on an interview two Los-Angeles based DEA agents conducted with Laurence Victor Harrison, a shadowy figure who, according to court testimony, ran a sophisticated communications network for major Mexican drug traffickers and their allies in Mexican law enforcement in the early and mid 1980s.

On Feb. 9, according to the report, Harrison told DEA agents Hector Berrellez and Wayne Schmidt that the CIA used Mexico’s Federal Security Directorate (DFS) “as a cover, in the event any questions were raised as to who was running the training operation.”

Harrison also said that “representatives of the DFS which was the front for the training camp were in fact acting in consort with major drug overlords to ensure a flow of narcotics through Mexico into the United States.”

At some point between 1981 and 1984, according to Harrison, “members of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police (MFJP) arrived at the ranch while on a separate narcotics investigation and were confronted by the guerrillas. As a result of the confrontation, 19MFJP agents were killed. Many of the bodies showed signs of torture; the bodies had been drawn and quartered.”

In a separate interview on Sept. 11, 1989, Harrison told the same two DEA agents that CIA operations personnel had stayed at the home of Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, one of Mexico’s other major drug kingpins and an ally of Caro. The report does not specify when this occurred.

Harrison testified at the Camarena murder trial that he lived at Fonseca’s house for several months in 1983 and 1984 when he was installing radio systems for the drug lord. He also has told the DEA that on several occasions he served as a guard on Fonseca’s drug convoys, “using his Gobernacion (Mexico’s Interior Ministry) credentials.”

The DEA report, which was completed in February, does not state specifically whether CIA officials knew who owned the ranch where the Guatemalans were being trained, why Guatemalans were being trained or whether marijuana was being grown there.

Asked about the allegations, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said Wednesday: “The CIA does not engage in drug-running activities.”

Caro had vast marijuana plantations in other parts of Mexico. He also is known to have had close ties with officials of various Mexican law enforcement agencies, including the DFS, a police agency that was riddled with drug-related corruption, One of the primary interrogators of Camarena when he was tortured at Caro’s Guadalajara home in February, 1985, was Sergio Espino Verdin, a former DFS commander.

The DEA reports became available Tuesday night after U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie ordered federal prosecutors to turn them over to defense lawyers in the Camarena murder trial, which is nearing the end of its seventh week.

Caro, Fonseca and Espino are serving prison terms in Mexico after being convicted there on charges stemming from the kidnapping and murder of Camarena. Four men, three Mexicans and a Honduran, are on trial in Los Angeles over their alleged involvement in the Camarena murder. In 1988, three others were convicted on charges growing out of the murder.

This is not the first time that questions about the CIA have been raised in the Camarena case. During the first trial, defense lawyers attempted unsuccessfully to introduce evidence about alleged links between the CIA and Mexican drug kingpin Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo.

Last month, a lawyer for defendant Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros was spurned by Rafeedie in his efforts to obtain a report he claims was compiled by the DEA on the relationship between Felix and the CIA. Rafeedie said defense lawyer Martin R. Stolar was engaged in “a fishing expedition.”

In light of the newly released reports, Stolar vowed Wednesday to renew his request to Rafeedie this week.

Also last month, defense lawyer Mary Kelly tried to question Harrison over his knowledge of any ties between Mexican traffickers and the CIA. But Rafeedie prohibited Harrison from answering. Kelly contends that if the traffickers were acting with CIA license, it could provide a possible defense for her client, Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez, a Fonseca bodyguard.

Harrison also told the DEA agents in September that in June or July, 1987, he was asked by an American man in Guadalajara--who he believed worked for the CIA--what information he had given the DEA about CIA operations in Mexico. Harrison said he told the man “you guys (CIA) are working with the traffickers . . . We ( Gobernacion and the Mexican intelligence community) know that the CIA are supplying guns to Nicaragua.”

The American, identified in the report only by the name Dale, “nodded his head in an affirmative manner saying yes I know,” the report said.

Numerous sentences in the DEA reports have been censored, including Harrison’s name. The information is known to have come from Harrison because lawyers for defendant Ruben Zuno Arce asked Rafeedie to order the government to give them DEA interviews of Harrison that had not been provided earlier.

Both reports that have references to the CIA are stamped “SECRET, NO FORN,” which sources said referred to no foreign distribution.

Harrison has testified that he decided last September to become a government witness in the Camarena case. He and his family have been relocated from Mexico for security reasons, according to government documents and his testimony.

On the witness stand, Harrison said that he audited classes at UC Berkeley in the late 1960s, first went to Mexico in 1968 at the height of a student rebellion there and settled in that country in 1971. Several defense lawyers in the case said they thought Harrison had been a CIA operative, but he denied ever having worked for a U.S. government agency.

The Murder of DEA Agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena || Armchair Journalism

Lead DEA Investigator Shares His Undercover Drug-Bust Story

NARCOS Mexico

29-09-12, 22:31	#3
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	PHOTOS=Guantanamo Torture & The "Secret Prisons" The Shame of Guantanamo Bay All branches of the US government must act to end one of the most shameful episodes in American history. Al Jazerra & A.P. As documents secured by the ACLU demonstrate, Guantanamo became a perverse laboratory for *brutal interrogation methods.* Prisoners were subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, extreme temperatures and prolonged isolation. It started with two false premises: Those who were sent there were all terrorists picked up on the battlefield and that, as "unlawful enemy combatants", they had no legal rights. In reality, a tiny percentage was captured by US forces; most were seized by Pakistani and Afghan militias, tribesmen, and officials, and then sold to the US for large bounties. Our nation continues to pay the price for those egregious errors. Torture is the principal reason for the astonishing fact that, more than 10 years after 9/11, the alleged perpetrators of those attacks - though in US custody for as long as nine years - have not been brought to justice. The reputation of the US as a defender of human rights has been profoundly diminished because of Guantanamo's continued existence. Our allies have refused to share intelligence out of concern that it will be used in unfair military commissions, and will not extradite terrorism suspects if they will end up in military detention. Perhaps most critically, military officials acknowledge Guantanamo has been used for years as a recruiting tool by our enemies - creating far more terrorists than it has ever held - thereby undermining rather than enhancing our security. And torture is also why federal courts were rejected in favour of military commissions with looser evidentiary standards. Even under this imbalanced system, only six Guantanamo prisoners have been sentenced for crimes before a military commission. Each branch of government shares responsibility for the perpetuation of Guantanamo's legacy. Congress has chosen to score political points rather than do what's right. It has repeatedly used its power of the purse to prevent the release or resettlement of Guantanamo prisoners cleared for release, and to bar criminal trials of those against whom there is evidence for prosecution in federal court. Guantanamo was not a problem of President Obama's making, but it is now one of his choosing. After his pledge to close Guantanamo within a year, the president failed to show the commitment necessary to build Congressional support, provide a logistical plan to release Guantánamo prisoners or bring them to trial. Like President Bush before him, Obama has also claimed the authority to detain without charge or trial terrorism suspects captured far from any theatre of war. Finally, the courts have refused to articulate and enforce clear limits on the executive's detention authority. To be sure, the Supreme Court has on three occasions heard challenges to the Guantanamo regime, and every time has repudiated the excesses of the political branches. Those decisions held that Guantanamo prisoners could challenge their detention under habeas corpus, that the Geneva Conventions applied to the fight with Al Qaeda, and that the Executive Branch could not unilaterally create a military commission system with limited rights for the accused. However, the court has left unanswered two critically important questions: Who is detainable, and what process are they due? It has stood by as a lower court gutted meaningful habeas review, and held that a judge has no power to enforce a decision that a Guantanamo prisoner must be released. It also let stand a ruling that people tortured in Guantanamo could not sue for damages, holding they were not "persons' before the law", and that senior government officials could not have known that torturing non-citizens abroad was banned by the Constitution. All branches of government must rise to the task. The Supreme Court must define the scope of war-time detention. It must ensure the right to habeas corpus is a meaningful one that tests, and does not rubber stamp, the government's case. Congress must lift the unnecessary restrictions on transfer and release from Guantanamo, particularly for the 89 men whom our security services and military have unanimously determined should be released. President Obama must also show the courage of his previously stated convictions and either prosecute the other 82 men in federal court or set them free. Then Guantanamo must close. *Anthony D Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union.* Only six Guantanamo prisoners have been tried before a military commission [ACLU] New York - This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the first prisoner arriving at Guantanamo Bay, making it the longest-standing war prison in US history. Guantanamo has been a catastrophic failure on every front. It has long been past the time for this shameful episode in American history to be brought to a close. President Obama has failed to shutter Guantanamo, even though on his second day in office he signed an executive order to close the prison and restore "core constitutional values". In fact, the 2012 National Defence Authorization Act that Obama signed on New Year's Eve contains a sweeping provision that makes indefinite military detention, including of people captured far from any battlefield, a permanent part of American law for the first time in this country's history. This is not just unconstitutional - it's just plain wrong. Guantanamo was fashioned as an "island outside the law" where terrorism suspects could be held without charge and interrogated without restraint. Almost 800 men have passed through its cells. Today, 171 remain. In Pictures: Guantanamo, a decade later Ten years after Bush opened facility and two years after Obama called for its closure, 171 detainees remain. KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty ImagesJune 23, 2011: Activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods protest torture and call for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility outside the White House. Susan Walsh/APSeptember 14, 2001: US congress passes AUMF bill, giving President Bush unprecedented authorisation to use force against "nations, organisations and individuals" whom he determined were connected in any way with the 9/11 attacks or future acts of international terrorism. Brendan Hoffman/Getty ImagesSeptember 17, 2001: President George Bush signs memorandum authorising CIA to set up detention facilities outside the US containing specific information relating to the sources and methods by which the CIA was to implement the detention programme. AFP/Getty ImagesDecember 28, 2001: Justice department memorandum to Pentagon says because Guantanamo Bay is not sovereign US territory, federal courts should not be able to consider habeas corpus petitions, or right to a fair trial, from "enemy aliens" detained at the base. STR/REUTERSJanuary 11, 2002: The first detainees are transferred to Guantanamo from Afghanistan and are held in wire mesh cages in an area known as Camp X-Ray. AP/APAugust 01, 2002: Justice department memorandum to then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales says president can authorise torture, that interrogators may cause severe pain before crossing torture threshold. Another justice department memorandum to CIA gives legal approval for the agency to use 10 interrogation techniques against Abu Zubaydah. Techniques include stress positions, sleep deprivation, confinement in a small box and "waterboarding", in which the process of drowning the detainee is begun. REUTERSJuly 07, 2004: Pentagon announces formation of Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) – panels of three military officers who will review whether Guantanamo detainees are "properly detained" as "enemy combatants". Alex Wong/Getty ImagesMay 25, 2005: Amnesty International, the UK-based group, calls for the Guantanamo detention facility to be closed. The call is joined by UN experts, former US Presidents Carter and Clinton, heads of state from Europe and elsewhere, and other human rights and legal organisations. ART LIEN/AFP/Getty Images December 13, 2006: Federal judge dismisses Salim Ahmed Hamdan's habeas corpus petition on grounds that the Military Commissions Act (MCA), signed into law by President Bush in October of that year, strips federal courts of jurisdiction to consider such appeals. STR/ReutersJuly 20, 2007: President Bush issues an executive order authorising and endorsing secret detention so long as "conditions of confinement and interrogation practices of the programme" remain within limits set out in his order. /EPAMay 01, 2008: Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman was arrested by the Pakistani army in 2001. Al-Hajj spent six years in Guantanamo and was finally released without charge. KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERSJanuary 22, 2009: Two days after his inauguration, President Obama signs three executive orders, one of which states the detention facility at Guantanamo "shall be closed as soon as practicable and no later than one year from the date of this order". KEVIN LAMARQUE/REUTERSMay 21, 2009: In a major speech on national security, President Obama restates his commitment to closing Guantanamo but endorses indefinite detention without criminal trial of some detainees. BENJAMIN MYERS/REUTERSNovember 13, 2010: The US attorney-general, Eric Holder, announces five Guantanamo detainees accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks will be transferred to US and prosecuted in federal court. These same five detainees had been charged by Bush administration for trial by military commission in 2008. STR/REUTERSJanuary 22, 2010: Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the Guantanamo detention facility passes with 198 detainees still held in the base, about half of them Yemeni nationals. The Guantanamo Review Task Force issues final report, revealing that 48 detainees could neither be prosecuted nor released and had been "unanimously approved for continued detention under the AUMF". John Moore/Getty Images December 01, 2011: Almost two years after President Obama called for its closure, 171 men from more than 20 countries remain held at Guantanamo, most of them without charge or trial. Data compiled by Amnesty International, the UK-based human-rights organisation. __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

29-09-12, 22:56	#4
gladiator Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Location: nova scotia Posts: 41 Thanks: 237 Thanked 10 Times in 6 Posts	Re: PHOTOS- Youngest Prisoner leaves Guantanamo-But Some Died They should of let him rot there.

29-09-12, 23:53	#6
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	re: CIA Trained Guerillas on Mexican Drug Lords' Ranch Guantanamo Remembered: A Personal Perspective from an Innocent Prisoner Ten years ago, Moazzam Begg was abducted from his home by Pakistani and US intelligence agents and taken to Guantanamo. Moazzam Begg (right, with his father) has campaigned for those left behind in Guantanamo [GALLO/GETTY] London, United Kingdom - "You are now the property of the United States and you have no rights" - Those were the first words to greet me and other prisoners held in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Ten years on, little has changed there. My life was changed irretrievably on January 31, 2002, when Pakistani and US intelligence agents abducted me from my home in Islamabad in the middle of the night, in front of my family - at gunpoint - and took me to a series of secret and military prisons that included Kandahar, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay. After three years of an ordeal that included being punched and kicked, forcibly stripped, shaven, violated, spat upon; enduring racial and religious abuse, incommunicado incarceration in a cell smaller than an average house toilet; being subjected to more than 300 interrogations - sometimes with my wrists shackled to my ankles from behind my back; watching the Quran being desecrated; being threatened with torture in Syria or Egypt; being subjected to the sounds of screams I was made to believe were from my family members and watching two prisoners being beaten to death, I was finally returned to the UK and to my family - which had a new member, my three-old-son, whom I had never seen. Like the overwhelming majority of the prisoners there, I was interrogated by the world's most powerful law enforcement and intelligence agencies: the CIA, FBI, MI5, *CITF, (Live link for reference),* US military intelligence and many others. I have also learned - since my release - that many other nations were allowed to use the Guantanamo experiment to interrogate dissidents from their own countries, such as Libyan intelligence under Colonel Gaddafi. But, despite the arsenal of weapons - both metaphoric and real - *there were never any charges or trial for me.* Shortly after my return, I joined the human rights NGO, Cageprisoners, and found myself establishing strong links with former Guantanamo prisoners all around the world, in addition to their lawyers, and the families of those awaiting the return of their loved ones. Survivor's guilt What became evident to me early was that I was facing an internal struggle based on my faith, survivor's guilt and the natural quest for justice, which has become my resolute aim to date. Since then, I have, by the grace of God, travelled the world to campaign for those left behind in Guantanamo. I have toured with former US soldiers who were once Guantanamo prison guards, speaking about the evils of US foreign adventures and have sat with world leaders, asking them to take in prisoners unable to return to their countries of origin for fears, ironically, of imprisonment and torture. They were also interviewed by the Huffington Post, and spoke out about the inhuman tortures that happened in Guantanamo, against innocent inmates, ****** (Video Below on the torture)********, Inside Story: Policy of Rendition I've met prisoners from different suspect communities who once faced similar experiences to mine - and worse; I've met with victims of British and US rendition who have become leaders of their country after the Arab Spring and I've returned to the house I was abducted from in Pakistan to record the scene of the crime. I've also met with the family of a woman whose screams once echoed through Bagram's soulless prison. I've earned accolades that range from being "Mandela-like" in my lack of bitterness towards my captors, to being called a terrorist sympathiser (notwithstanding the little detail that Nelson Mandela's 27-year imprisonment was as a "terrorist" under apartheid South Africa's rule) because I advocate dialogue with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, well before deals were being brokered in Qatar to accommodate the latter. Whatever I've seen or done in these years, the one thing I've not been able to recover is something I've been fighting to get back: normality. There's no such thing anymore. After all, what's normal about expecting your family to understand all that has transpired in the world's most secret prisons to terrorism suspects, when that is not even possible for "ordinary decent criminals"? In addition to the irrepressible sense of camaraderie that exists between us all, this is one of the resonating features that unites the former prisoners together: a hushed recognition of one another's pain. Irreparably changed When men are eventually released, how are they supposed to renew their familial relationships when their internal survival mechanism told them to stop believing they were fathers, husbands and sons? How can they rebuild their lives and be part of society again, once the world's most powerful men (and media) have described them as the "worst of the worst" - terrorist scumbags who are bent on destroying, rather than building? How do children, whose fathers are in Guantanamo, explain to their friends that "daddy is in prison" when society, by default, maintains that prisoners are bad men? And what of those poor, innocent children whose lost childhoods without a father for so long can never be reclaimed? What can fill the chasm created when the child needed the father most - and he wasn't there to help? Speaking of children, the past decade in Guantanamo has witness numerous child-prisoners, (Live link for reference), who have grown into adults behind the razor wire, able-bodied men's once healthy limbs amputed, perfectly sane men losing their minds and freedom gained at last, for some, in a coffin. To mark the tenth anniversary since the first prisoners were sent to Guantanamo, as pictures of men kneeling in orange jumpsuits, masked and goggled - looking like the extra-terrestrial beings we were told they were - shocked the world. The 171 remaining Guantanamo prisoners, however, will be protesting their innocence via one of the few methods available to them: hunger strike. Even if that means being forcibly restrained in a chair and pumped with liquid food through the nostril to keep them alive - as the living dead men they've become in the world's most notorious prison - which is capable of destroying lives both inside and out - that we, and history, will never forget. Moazzam Begg is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and spokesperson for Cageprisoners Interview on Guantanamo Torture; __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL** ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

30-09-12, 00:26	#7
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	re: CIA Trained Guerillas on Mexican Drug Lords' Ranch Saudi Colonel Talal al-Zahrani on the death of his innocent son in Guantanamo Written by Moazzam Begg, September 2012 Moazzam Begg in conversation with Colonel Talal al-Zaharni whose son died in Guantanamo in 2006 In July 2006 the US administration in Guantanamo reported that three prisoners at the detention facility committed suicide. Senior US officials, including camp commander Admiral Harry Harris described the deaths as acts of “asymmetric warfare” while deputyUS Assistant Secretary of Statefor PublicDiplomacy, Colleen Graffy, said the incident as a “good PR move” by the prisoners. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the families of the men who had waited an agonising five years for their loved ones met the news of the deaths with shock and acceptance. Shock (and disbelief) at the notion that their sons would commit suicide after having passed through trials even harder than Guantanamo, and acceptance in the way any Muslim is supposed to respond to a calamity The father of one of these men, Col. Talal al-Zahrani, a former head of police for the Madinah district in Saudi Arabia, recently attended the Oslo premier of the documentary film Death in Guantanamo which tells the story of his quest for justice. Cageprisoners director Moazzam Begg met up with Col. Talal there and conducted the following interview: Moazzam Begg (MB): Can you please introduce yourself to us and explain how your (son’s) case became well-known? Colonel Talal al-Zahrani (CTZ): Firstly, I would like to thank you for taking interest in this case. I am Talal al-Zahrani, father of Yasser – one of the men who died in Guantanamo. This story of course has now become infamous because he [Yasser] is one of the three about whom the US administration declared had committed suicide at the Guantanamo prison around five years ago. Of course, this statement is something that we rejected the moment we heard it and, after that when more facts surrounding the incident began to emerge – i.e. that they had been killed in prison by some of the guards - our rejection of the US version of events was complete. This information came to light via some sources in the US – and elsewhere – such as the US Center for Constitutional Rights and the lawyers working with them who have taken on this task and started the case and we have given them all the relevant information regarding this case. However, we have never received any response or co-operation from the US authorities to date but that has not prevented our determination in seeking to expose the truth behind these crimes and to have our day in court. MB: We are presently in the city of Oslo, Norway. Can you tell me what has brought you here? CTZ: I was invited to attend the screening of the film that I had taken part in the shooting of several months ago, so I am here to see it and meet people here at a conference. MB: What do you see are the benefits of such a film, especially in places around the Muslim world, would such a film be welcomed? CTZ: Any attempt to get at the truth of what happened, in my opinion, is beneficial and I believe this film does a very good job of doing that. MB: Many people attended the screening and many more came to the conference to hear about your plight. How was the film received and what was the interaction with you like? CTZ: Many people came and showed a great deal of support and sympathy. They were affected by what they saw and heard; several of them were even crying. They were greeting me with so much warmth and humanity and offered all their support. MB: Before we continue I’d like to get some background details from you. What was Yasser like as a person, what was his life like before and what was he like as a son? CTZ: Yasser was a young Muslim man – he was brought up in a practicing] Muslim household. Like many others his age he would hear about the affairs of the Muslim world, what it was going through and felt the pain that many Muslims were feeling eventhough he was not experiencing it himself. Among the places he was concerned with where he felt people were undergoing aggression and oppression was Afghanistan – despite his relatively young age. Thus he travelled there with the intention of assisting the Afghan people to do whatever he was able to. MB: What was he like the last time you saw him, what frame of mind was he in? CTZ: He was in high spirits and full of life. He was a very optimistic person; he loved sports, he had no physical or mental problems, al-hamdu lillah, he was a normal person who loved his studies, loved seeking knowledge but, he was also very affected by what was happening in the Muslim world and that is why he went to Afghanistan. MB: So that was in 2001, before the US-led invasion? CTZ: Yes, it was by a couple of months. It was the first time he left the Kingdom [Saudi Arabia] – he’d never been anywhere before that. MB: When did you first hear about his capture and what was your reaction to this news? CTZ: Well, he called us about six weeks after he’d left and told us that the country was in turmoil [following the attacks on the US] so we told him that he should now return home. However, we did not hear from him after that – all contact was cut – until almost five agonising months had passed. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. MB: So you had no news of him at all? CTZ: Of course we saw the news regarding the US invasion, the bombing, evacuations and deaths but we didn’t know anything about our son.After five months we had a telephone call from the Saudi authorities who informed us “your son is in Guantanamo”. That was the first time we heard this news. MB: How did you react, what was your prior impression of Guantanamo? CTZ: At that time we didn’t know very much about Guantanamo other than it is a US prison. We had no details of why he was taken there, why he wasn’t held on the US mainland, Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world. We discovered the reasons for this much later. MB: Did you fear that prisoners’ rights were being violated or that they were being tortured in US custody? CTZ: None of us who heard about the detentions expected that Guantanamo – and what preceded it – would achieve notoriety as one of the worst prisons in history through the abuse of basic human rights and the systematic application of torture. We never imagined, not even one per cent, a nation we once looked up to, which claimed to uphold the highest levels of justice, freedom and human rights in the world could become the greatest violator of these rights. MB: How did people in your society react to the news of Yasser’s incarceration, were they afraid, did they avoid you or were they sympathetic? CTZ: To be honest from all the people we known from inside the Kingdom, or outside of it, we found to be very sympathetic because they knew our son and what he was like. He had no associations with anyone – he had simply gone for humanitarian work and was suddenly kidnapped from the land [Afghanistan] without explanation, after being falsely accused [of terrorism links], and sent to terrible prisons where he was tortured and then they informed us that he had committed suicide. So everyone we came across has been sympathetic – even Americans who have recognised the lies put forward by the US authorities have shown us great empathy, right from inside the US. MB: What were your instincts as a father, did you think your son would remain in prison for a short while and return home or were you resigned to the prospect that he would remain there for a very long time? CTZ: In truth we never expected – in the beginning – that anyone would leave that prison. We understood that it is a terrifying place where torture is practiced routinely, but when the first sets of Saudi prisoners were released our hopes were renewed that our son would also be freed. In fact, we believe he was due to be released with the third group of Saudi prisoners and we had mentally prepared for that. MB: So you were receiving letters from him regularly? CTZ: The postal system was sporadic – we received letters from him intermittently. Sometimes it took a long as a year to get a reply; we recognised later this was another method of psychological torture in order to keep the prisoners incommunicado from their loved ones so that no ones knows of their state or plight. *MB: You mentioned in the film Death in Guantanamo* that you regard your son as a ‘hero’. Why did you say this? CTZ: Because firstly he had gone for humanitarian work. Secondly, the powers that kidnapped, tortured, abused and ultimately killed him are oppressive, tyrannical, aggressive and malignant; they spread false rumours that in reality are unbelievable. These powers exercise distorted media lies to justify, kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and killing (death). My son was firm and brave and did not admit to any lies and false accusations levelled against himself despite the sever torture inflicted upon him and this was acknowledged by his fellow detainees who knew him. Yasser stayed firm upon his principles and only communicated the facts that they already knew and was patient upon this until they killed him and therefore I say that he was the possessor of morals and a hero. He had clear objectives in relation to himself and others. May Allah have mercy upon him MB: You also said “he did not want to harm you”, that he used to say his situation was good and did not complain about problems? CTZ: This is an aspect of heroism because he used to send us letters of reassurance saying that he is well and not to worry about him, even when it became clear later on that he was under severe pressure, suffering under a regimen of physical and psychological torture which the former US Defense Secretary has admitted, that orders were given to officers and those responsible for the prison which permitted the practice of torture of every kind – physical, psychological, ideological –, torture which was designed to violate human rights and to transgress against [the prisoners’] humanity and dignity. During this period of extreme hardship he [Yasser] would write to us and tell us not to worry and that all was well with him. This is an indication of his high morale and maturity. MB: Of course, all that happened in Kandahar and Guantanamo was predated by the events of the Qala-i-Jangi massacre. Did you know that he had been a survivor of that place? CTZ: We learned about this much later. The Qala-i-Jangi incident is a huge war crime which should be counted amongst the worst in modern human history, in which over 500 men were falsely imprisoned, and, with their hands bound behind their backs they were fired upon and then they [the survivors] entered the fortress (Qala) to save themselves from and resist the efforts of those who were trying to kill them using various barbaric methods – outside of any legal process. For close to two weeks they were subjected to this during which time over 500 were killed – may Allah have mercy on them all; Yasser was one of the 70 or so who survived this bloodbath. MB: How did you receive the news of your son’s death and what went through your mind at the time? CTZ: News of the death of my son – may Allah have mercy on him – was very sudden and unexpected. It was undoubtedly very painful and created intense feelings of sadness that deeply wounded our hearts. What made the pain and sorrow worse was the lies put out by the US authorities about the nature of his death – stating that he had committed suicide, something we later we able to establish was a complete falsification of the reality. All of this increased our anguish and grief, but it also made us angry. MB: Where did this news come to you from – through the media, or the government? CTZ: We were informed by the Saudi Interior Ministry – they told me that my son was amongst the three who had committed suicide. MB: How long after that was it that you saw Yasser’s body and were able to look at it? CTZ: About three days after the story broke the Saudi Interior Ministry informed me that my son had committed suicide. After that, about another week later the bodies arrived at Riyadh and we were informed that we could come to see him and collect the remains. MB: What were your thoughts at the time when you first saw the body of your son? CTZ: The grief of parents seeing their child’s body is one that is without doubt very painful; but, we say “From Allah we come and unto him we shall return,” and we are patient and hopeful [in Allah’s mercy] because people die in all types of circumstances, but when a man dies for a higher purpose, defending the oppressed, serving the weak and is helping to save them from harm [such as in Yasser's case] this gave us solace, on the one hand. On the other hand, we felt that those who carried out these crimes [against him] were cowards, and this also gave us some consolation. However, in the end, there is no doubt that the sadness and pain will remain with us for a long time. MB: For any parent this is extremely testing and hard, yet you examined your son’s body and noticed something. Can you say what that was? CTZ: Yes. When I looked at the body I saw what I’d expected: signs of torture and abuse. As I said, the US administration has admitted the authorisation and practice of torture so I was expecting to see its effects. But the signs I saw were even more than I’d anticipated: there were some terrible marks on his head, chest, face, arms and many other parts of his body. For example , his larynx had been removed. All of this showed the savage and cowardly nature of the people who did this. Those who torture prisoners are cowards. He was in isolation, a young boy who they killed and then accused of committing suicide [as a means of ‘asymmetric warfare’]. This is cowardice of the highest order. MB: We saw from the video footage of the janaazah (funeral) procession that large numbers of people attended. How did they respond to the news in your locality and what were they saying? CTZ*: People reacted in the way of human fitrah* (natural disposition): they rejected and were disgusted by this arrogant and repressive treatment of the prisoners; conceitedness against Allah’s creation, violating the rights of men. The people were following events closely. They were very angry against America and its policies – as you can see in the film. They were chanting “Allahu Akbar” and repeating slogans against the US and its policies. That is very clear. People came in their thousands that day to the Masjid an-Nabawi (the Prophet’s Mosque) in Madinah to attend the funeral prayer. They had come from all over the country – not just Madinah – but from Riyadh, Makkah, north and south of the country. Yasser was buried in the graveyard of al-Baqi, may Allah have mercy on him. MB: At what point did you decide that the US’ version of events was not credible and that you would seek redress against US authorities? CTZ: I decided from the first moment that I would try, to the best of my ability, to uncover the truth about my son’s death and to investigate the section [of the military] that had perpetrated this crime so that they receive what they deserve [of justice]. From the very beginning I had support, which I have to admit, came when I received communications from the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) lawyers who were concerned with human rights and the abuses [taking place at Guantanamo] – independent [of the US Government] of course – and they told me about their focus [on Guantanamo]. They came highly recommended from some friends of mine who had worked in the US who said they would take our case to the highest level (in sha Allah). MB: You took your case to the US courts and accused former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of being personally responsible. Why him? CTZ: Rumsfeld was the Minister of Defence. He is responsible without a doubt. The prison [Guantanamo] was under the administration of the Ministry of Defence. Rumsfeld was in charge and, he had already authorised the use of abusive techniques which is well-known. Thus, as far as we are concerned he is directly responsible. If this is properly investigated and presented to the courts it will become apparent that he was fully in charge and giving the orders. All of this will become clear and so we are seeking for this man to be prosecuted in addition to everyone who supported him in committing this crime. MB: The Guantanamo deaths are still commonly referred to as ‘suicides’, but of course you have rejected this appellation. One of the soldiers [Staff Sgt. Hickman] who was present when the deaths occurred has openly claimed that ‘no one committed suicide that night’, supporting your suspicions all along. If you ever had the opportunity to meet those soldiers who were responsible for and took part in the death of your son, what would you say to them? CTZ: There is no doubt that those who took part in and are responsible for this crime are amongst the worst types of criminals. Why? Because when an ordinary person commits a crime – even if it’s relatively small, he is regarded as a criminal. But when abuses are committed by a guard against a prisoner supposedly under his protection – he is responsible for that prisoner’s safety and then he kills that prisoner, he tortures him for years on end, and practices new techniques on him and then he kills him while his hands and legs are tied, such a person has descended to the lowest levels of humanity and has become a savage, having transgressed the limits of that humanity. Therefore, such people must be exposed and their crimes laid bare for the entire world to see. Such methods should not be available for use by countries that claim to raise the flag of human rights, freedom and justice while they are committing the worst abuses of all these rights in the world. MB: How have you met your tests, as a Muslim, in relation to your son and faced up to them as a father? CTZ: My dear brother. We are Muslims and Islam is peace, but it is not surrender to evil. And peace is offered to all those who want peace, but it does not meant surrender to all those who want to spread evil, corruption and transgression against others. A Muslim knows what his relationship to such things is – he does not transgress the rights of others nor does he allow others to violate his rights. So whoever thinks that he will make us Muslims bow to the might of such policies with repression and bombing, with fabricated evidence and lies devoid of facts, is deluded. Islamic people will never bow or prostrate to anyone other than to the One who created them. And we are of them. MB: Finally, what message or advice do you have for Muslims in specific and people in general in relation to your case? CTZ: I advise myself and my Muslim brothers with the words of the Most High: “...do not allow your animosity of a people to cause you to do them an injustice, be just, that is closer to taqwa [God-consciousness].” In this regard taqwa is being just in ones affairs with others – be they Muslim or not. Do not respond to transgression with injustice, this is not from Islam. Responding in such a manner is not differing from the oppressor but is rather becoming like him. __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

30-09-12, 08:16	#8
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	re: CIA Trained Guerillas on Mexican Drug Lords' Ranch Interrogations in Guantanamo Investigator, a Canadian..... questions a child after he was tortured by the CIA in one of their Secret Prisons --- one was in Bagram; "4 Days in Guantanamo- You Dont Like The Truth" He was a child and eventually died from the torture...He was NOT evil nor a trained terrorist. So those evil fanatics kill not only innocents by their attacks throughout the world, not only on 9/11. They kill "their own" and even their children. Ex-Guantanamo Guard on torture Please listen to what he has to say very carefully. Many prisoners were educated professional people, that had nothing to do with terrorism, but simply were imprisoned by the US/CIA, because of the bribes they offered in various countries, that caused some to turn innocent people "in" for the money. The CIA did not bother to investigate beforehand, if those they detained & imprisoned were innocent. I do hope that all my reports on Guantanamo does not offend any of you that lost loved ones and friends, either in Guantanamo, or by the actions of the evil fanatical Muslims, by 9/11 or their acts thereafter throughout the world. I do not mean any insult or to cause you any further pain, I too was greatly affected and hurt by terrorists acts, over the years, that caused my family to move. The IRA actually murdered more in Northern Ireland and their ensuing bombings in the UK, than the numbers from 9/11, and the resulting US Embassy bombings throughout the world since. In fact the IRA continue even today to train terrorists, not only in the Middle East, but in South America also. I do apologise to any of you that had pain because of any terrorism. It is just unfortunate that so many Muslims in some countries have become fanatics, either because they have been forced to constantly learn the Koran and repeat it every day in some schools, or they are just "turned" later in life when they have nothing more interesting to fulfill their brains/lives, and are unfortunate enough not to have the good opportunities, that most of us do, to progress and capture their hunger for more education and experiences. Again I apologise if I have caused any offense to any of you... not intended, for sure. I merely report what I see, from whatever injustices occur in the world, as I have done in my Syria thread. We must all believe in God.... There is only one God.... we just all travel along different paths to worship Him, just please do not hate Muslims as a whole. Just be kind to each other, and have a "clean heart". Ladybbird

30-09-12, 10:31	#9
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	re: CIA Trained Guerillas on Mexican Drug Lords' Ranch Secret CIA Prisons CIA 'has Secret Terror Jails' The CIA is holding some of its most important suspects in a network of secret prisons including one at a Soviet-era facility in Eastern Europe, the Washington Post reported. 1. A Saudi man, detained, tortured and held without charge by the US, is fighting for his rights As Poland expands its investigation into a secret CIA prison on its soil, can the victims of extraordinary rendition who were held without charge ever get justice and will the CIA be held to account? Lawyers in Poland for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri have asked Polish prosecutors to investigate his detention and torture at a CIA black site that once existed in that country. 2. Report lists Missing CIA Detainees Rights groups say whereabouts of 39 people held in secret CIA jails are now unknown. 3. Amnesty attacks US over Secret Jails The US government is running a string of prisons around the world, many of them secret camps through which people disappear, a top Amnesty International official says. 4. CIA Sacks Agent for Secret Prisons Leak The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) says it fired an intelligence officer for leaking classified information about secret CIA prisons 5. Red Cross probes CIA 'secret jails' The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has called for access to all foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States after a report of a covert CIA prison system for al-Qaida captives. 6. UN- US 'should shut Secret Jails' The United States should close its Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba and its secret prisons across the world, the UN says. 7. Europe Calls for more details on CIA prisons European lawmakers have demanded that their governments reveal the location of secret CIA prisons after George Bush admitted the US held terrorist suspects in Secret Jails abroad. 10. EU- some nations 'knew of CIA Secret Prisons' A draft report says many EU nations hid evidence of US secret prisons in Europe. US Secret Prisons 'Bigger Issue' Lawyer Clive Stafford Smith says Guantanamo overshadowing other US abuses around the world. Mohammed al-Hajj, Sami's son, sent a message to his father from Al Jazeera's offices Wearing a pristine white thobe, a dark skinned eight-year-old boy of Sudanese descent looks into a video camera. He says: "Ana bahibak baba" (I love you dad) - part of a message to be sent to his father. Mohammed al-Hajj, the timid boy on Al Jazeera English's studio lawn, is sending the message because he has not seen his father for six years. And his father is desperate for any scraps of communication and support from the outside world - he is Sami al-Hajj, an inmate at Guantanamo Bay. Al-Hajj is currently being force fed as he is on hunger strike and, according to Clive Stafford Smith, his British lawyer, he is also being subjected to psychological torture. Stafford Smith says that the US authorities, desperate to get al-Hajj to end his hunger strike, have resorted to new methods of control. "They've been telling him that he is strongly suspected of having cancer of the kidney and that he can't have proper medical care until he stops the hunger strike," Stafford Smith says. "I honestly don't know if they are trying to terrify him to get him to stop the hunger strike or whether they are just being delinquent in not giving him medical care. "And, of course, Sami told me - in fact, I'll quote him exactly: 'I worry too much. For three days I didn't sleep at all. I'd been lying there worrying that maybe I'm dying.' It has a real psychological impact." It is clear that al-Hajj is in poor health. His hunger strike is reaching its 16th month and in the past six years he has undergone interrogation methods some say are illegal under international law. Al-Hajj was captured on the Pakistan border in December 2001. He was attempting to travel to Afghanistan to work for Al Jazeera as a cameraman. He is yet to be charged by the US military. They say that all of the detainees in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre are "enemy combatants" and security threats. There are currently over 170 prisoners in the US centre in Cuba. A little over 500 have left since it was opened as part of the US's "war on terror". However, none of those has had their release ordered by courts because the US authorities have not allowed them to be tried. 'Secret prisons' Surprisingly, Stafford Smith, who represents about 30 of the detainees, has reservations concerning the dominance of Guantanamo on the news agenda. He says the much bigger issue - the suspected 27,000 prisoners held by the US in secret prisons around the world - is being overshadowed by the abuses of Guantanamo. Stafford Smith says that the "battle" concerning Guantanamo has not been won These "ghost prisoners", held without charge in the dark recesses of the "war on terror" for instance Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, are the real issue, says Stafford Smith. This is what the public, and by implication the media, are missing, he says. However bad those in Guantanamo have it, Stafford Smith believes conditions for these other prisoners are far worse. Reprieve, the non-profit organisation that Stafford Smith founded, is attempting to name and locate these prisoners, but it is an arduous task. And for the majority of those known to be held, there is little assistance - most do not have legal representation. Public trial Although Stafford Smith says that one day European courts may become the forum for litigation under the convention against torture, he says he wants the previous Bush administration's abuses to be exposed and tried in the public arena, much like Guantanamo. "We'll sue them as well, but part of it is trying them in the court of public opinion and letting people know what has been going on. Just shining the bright light of day on what people have been doing," he says. The focus will soon be allowed to move away from Guantanamo. What will remain is Guantanamo's legacy - the legitimisation of the use of torture by governments around the world. "You should never forget that what the Chinese do is outrageous and despicable and the same is true of a lot of other regimes around North Africa and the Middle East or wherever. "The sad truth is that they have been joined by the US at this point, which encourages those despots in these other countries because they say, 'this is what George Bush did'. "And everyone uses the word 'terrorism' to justify all sorts of terrible things. Putin says we can do anything we like because these are terrorists from Chechnya. "That is the major legacy of President George W Bush." Mohammed al-Hajj has not seen his father for six years Having "won the battle in Guantanamo", Stafford Smith is now primarily concerned with highlighting the US's secret prisons. Those in Guantanamo Bay prison remain behind bars despite holding little intelligence value, but on their release, life will never be the same again. Al-Hajj has been told by his native country, Sudan, that he will be allowed back into the country only if he does not work for Al Jazeera. For many, particularly those from developing countries, support and resources to help them recuperate are scarce. And for Mohammed, the father who was taken away from him, seems likely to remain a distant figure for some time to come....... __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

01-02-13, 06:29	#10
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	Guantanamo: Judge Orders End to Secret Censor 31 January 2013 Last updated at 19:26 ET Guantanamo trials: Judge orders end to secret censor The start of the trial could still be a year away BBC News, 31 Jan 2013 The judge overseeing a military trial at Guantanamo Bay has ordered an end to secret government censors after courtroom sound was cut during a discussion about CIA prisons. Army Col James Pohl ordered an unnamed government agency to remove censorship equipment, as a second round of pretrial hearings finished on Thursday. The order could add further delays to the proceedings, correspondents say. Defence lawyers want assurance talks with their clients were not tapped. The judge said in his ruling that he had sole authority to decide when to close a hearing or stop spectators - including journalists and relatives of the victims - from listening to testimony. Spectators watch the proceedings behind soundproof glass, and receive audio on a 40-second delay so that a court security officer can switch on a white noise machine while classified information is being discussed. No 'unilateral decisions' But on Monday, the white noise machine was activated without the prior knowledge of the judge or the courtroom security officer. The interruption came as a defence lawyer referred to a secret, overseas CIA prison where the defendants were held before they were brought to Guantanamo Bay. Later, the judge decided the information was not secret and released a transcript of what was said. Prosecutors said the courtroom audio was suspended by an OCA - Original Classification Authority - which could refer to any agency responsible for the classified information at stake. "This is the last time that an OCA or any other third party will be permitted to unilaterally decide that a broadcast should be suspended," Col Pohl said in his order. Defence lawyers also filed an emergency motion on Thursday asking to halt proceedings until they can be sure officials were not eavesdropping on communications with their clients. The five defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, face death penalty charges that include murder and terrorism for their alleged roles in planning the 9/11 attacks. Col Pohl did not rule on the defence lawyers' request, but said it would be addressed at the next session, scheduled for 11 February. "This needs to be resolved before anything else," he said. Meanwhile, a range of other legal issues that remain unresolved must be dealt with before the case can proceed to trial. The four-day hearing was concerned with procedural matters, such as the rules for calling witnesses and handling classified evidence. . __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

14-11-14, 17:07	#11
Ladybbird Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 47,530 Thanks: 27,621 Thanked 14,456 Times in 10,262 Posts Awards Showcase Total Awards: 8	PhOtOs-Guantanamo Bay Torture Doc Won't be Punished Doctor Who Aided in Torture of Suspected Terrorist at Guantanamo Bay Won't be Punished by American Psychological Association Dr John Leso consulted on the interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay The methods were so severe that even Pentagon officials called them 'torture' The American Psychological Association decided last month not to punish him They cite instances where he spoke about being uncomfortable with detainee abuse AP, 14 November 2014 The American Psychological Association has refused to punish one of its members for assisting in the torture of a 9/11 terrorist suspect at Guantanamo Bay. Leaked documents show that Dr John Leso, now a retired US Army reserves, instructed prison staff on ways to obtain intelligence from detainees including Mohammed al-Qahtani, the twentieth 9/11 hijacking suspect. The methods were so severe even Pentagon officials called them 'torture'. Methods included forcibly hydrating Qahtani though IVs and then not letting him use the bathroom. They also subjected him to loud music, made him bark like a dog and deprived him of sleeping saying he can go to bed 'when he tells the truth'. But in an APA letter obtained by the Guardian from December 31, they decided they 'cannot proceed with formal charges in this matter. Consequently the complaint against Dr Leso has been closed'. Fact: Leaked documents prove that Dr John Leso aided in the torture of a suspected terrorist at Guantanamo Bay The APA doesn't deny that Dr Leso took part in the torture, but says his actions didn't meet the burden of 'direct unethical conduct' since he was a noted critic of the military's intelligence gathering approach. Leso and colleague Major Paul Burney were the authors of an interrogation handbook of sorts - a memorandum called 'Counter-Resistance Strategies which advised on how to best get information from prisoners. 'All aspects of the [detention] environment should enhance capture shock, dislocate expectation, and support exploitation to the fullest extent possible,' one section read. Exonerated: But the American Psychological Association ruled last month that they will not carry out charges against Leso, one of their members. On the left, Mohammed al-Qahtani, the terrorist suspect he helped torture. On the right, a detainee being interrogated at Abu Ghraib But Leso and Burney distanced themselves from the document during a Senate panel in 2007, saying they were' not comfortable with the memo they were asked to produce'. Prior to that, just a month before logs show he aided in the interrogation of Qahtani, Leso was in a Guantanamo meeting in which he said that detainee abuse may not prove fruitful. 'Force is risky, and may be ineffective due to the detainees' frame of reference,' he said in October 2002. 'They are used to seeing much more barbaric treatment.' These occasions of noted discomfort are what the APA are using to defend their move in exonerating Leso. 'Available evidence in the public domain also includes that, in the face of pressure from the highest levels of the Bush administration which strongly supported ‘enhanced’ interrogation tactics, the respondent sought consultation and argued against such approaches and in favor of rapport-building approach,' wrote Lindsay Childress-Beatty, the deputy director of the APA’s ethics office, in the December 31 letter. The APA's decision has not been popular among other psychologists who believe this breaks their 'do no harm' rule. Trudy Bond is the Ohio psychologist who complained about Leso's work at Guantanamo to the APA and said their decision sends the message that 'psychologists are free to violate our ethical code, perhaps, in certain situations' __________________ PUTIN TRUMP & Netanyahu Will Meet in HELL ..................*SHARKS are Closing in on TRUMP*.......................... *TRUMP WARNS; 'There'll Be a Bloodbath* If I Don't Get Elected'..MAGA - MyAssGotArrested...IT's COMING** PLEASE HELP THIS SITE..Click DONATE & Thanks to ALL Members of ... 1.. THIS SITE IS MORE THAN JUST WAREZ...& TO STOP SPAM-IF YOU WANT TO POST, YOUR FIRST POST MUST BE IN WELCOMES

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