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USA: RENDITION: Barbaric Conditions That Led to a Detainee's Death Are Laid Bare in CIA Reports

14 June 2016

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"The CIA black site prison had 20 cells. Described as "stand-alone concrete boxes," the cell block was outfitted with stereo speakers that played music 24 hours a day to prevent captives from communicating with each other. Captives, who first arrived there in September 2002, were often held in total darkness. Some were subjected to mock executions.

Four of the cells at the black site — it was located in Afghanistan and code-named COBALT, but it was also referred to as the Salt Pit — had "high bars... to which prisoners can be secured." These four cells were designed specifically for sleep deprivation.

The prison is where a 34-year-old Afghan militant and suspected al-Qaeda operative named Gul Rahman froze to death in November 2002 after undergoing a brutal torture regimen that included being beaten, doused with cold water, and left half-naked while chained to the floor of his cell. Several of the techniques CIA interrogators used on Rahman were unauthorized; in August 2002, a Department of Justice attorney named John Yoo had written a legal memo sanctioning nearly a dozen torture methods for use on high-value captives."

See the story: Barbaric Conditions That Led to a Detainee's Death Are Laid Bare in CIA Reports (Vice News, link)

And see a series of documents recently released by the CIA related to the rendition and torutre programme: Documents Related to the Former Detention and Interrogation Program (CIA, link)

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