CIA Officers based in a top-secret military black site must fight for their lives in a cat-and-mouse game against Hatchet, a brilliant and ruthless detainee who escapes and retaliates by killing them off one-by-one. Supreme Court blocks Gitmo detainee seeking details on 'black sites' But cables show it was Jessen who debated whether to subject Rahman to enhanced interrogations techniques with CIA headquarters, and it was Jessen whose advice held sway when he and Zirbel plotted Rahmans interrogation. After the Senate report was released, VICE News filed FOIA requests with the BOP seeking documents pertaining to the presence of BOP personnel at COBALT and other black sites. . In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. They were 50 feet from him and it took several minutes before they realized the now balding middle-age man with a gray goatee inside the court chamber was their son and brother. The report, partially based on CIA cable traffic (which the IG said contained "material omissions and inaccuracies"), said that Rahman was given a cold shower "because the heater at the black site was not working." BOP also "made a number of recommendations to improve the security" at COBALT. CIA black site detainee served as training prop to teach interrogators Margot Williams, The Intercepts research editor for investigations, compiled the locations and, with research editor Josh Begley, placed them on the map below: After the Dobbs decision leaked, the Supreme Court more than doubled its protective detail, despite no evidence of a heightened threat. Baluchi, a 44-year-old Kuwaiti, is one of five defendants before a military tribunal on Guantnamo Bay charged with participation in the 9/11 plot, but the case has been in pre-trial hearings for 10 years, mired in a dispute over legal admissibility of testimony obtained after torture. Unknown to the jurors, Mr. Khan and his lawyers reached a secret deal this year with a senior Pentagon official in which his actual sentence could end as early as February and no later than February 2025 because Mr. Khan became a government cooperator upon pleading guilty. The CIA black site prison had 20 cells. "Following the November [redacted], 2002, through November [redacted] 2002, visit, CIA officers in [Afghanistan] remarked that the Federal Bureau of Prisons assessments, along with recommendations and training, had 'made a noticeable improvement on how the day to day operations at the facility are performed,' and made the detention site a 'more secure and safer working environment for officers,'" the Senate report said. Rahman subjected to 48 hours of sleep deprivation, rough treatment, cold shower and other measures but remained noncompliant. The Supreme Court will decide if C.I.A. black sites are state secrets [Rahman] is physically strong, hitting him isnt going to do any good. "Rewards can consist of a light, 'foamies' for the prisoners' ears (blocks out the music), a mat to sleep on, extra blankets, etc. At Titanic Site, the Grim Job Now Is Assessing the Submersible's Debris I went willingly to Al Qaeda, he said. R Movie 2022. Trump Poised to Lift Ban on C.I.A. 'Black Site' Prisons Lower courts have split over the subpoenas for evidence in Zubaydahs case. The report, consisting of several documents, dates back to 2008 and said Mr Baluchis head was injured as a result of repeatedly using him as a living prop by slamming him against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage. A CIA supervisor who visited the facility just after Rahman arrived told the CIAs investigator it was very cold in [Cobalt] when he was there and the issue of hypothermia crossed his mind as he saw Rahman wearing only socks and a diaper.. They connected one end to the faucet, put the other in my rectum and they turned on the water, he said, adding that he lost control of his bowels after those episodes and, to this day, has hemorrhoids. planes were said to have landed in 2002 and 2003. For first time in public, a detainee describes torture at CIA black sites Jessen told one of the interrogators assigned to COBALT, "You cannot harm or kill the detainees, but you can handle the debriefings/interrogations as you see fit. The road to a contract psychologist telling a CIA investigator that he was the one with all the interrogation tricks began just a year before, in early 2002, when Jessen and Mitchell wrote a paper titled Countermeasures to Al Qaeda Resistance to Interrogation Techniques. He described the experience: images of a cow and a giant lizard advancing on him inside a cell while he was chained to a beam above his head. David Klein argues on behalf of Abu Zubaydah on Oct. 6. ", During his first two days of detention, he underwent "rough treatment," consisting of being "pushed and shoved" while hooded in order to "disorient him. Zubaydah and his legal team said the information is critical to a case they are pursuing overseas against Polish government officials for alleged complicity in his treatment. It is undisputed that Mr. Zubaydah was subjected to brutal interrogations at one or more black sites. He juxtaposed his remarks of regret with previously unheard details of what happened to him at the hands of the United States, the country his parents and siblings adopted by becoming citizens even as he did not. According to the inspector generals report, the CIA was aware that the 2003 rendition of the detainee, Ammar al-Baluchi, from Pakistani custody to the black site north of Kabul was conducted extra-legally, because at the time he was in Pakistani jurisdiction and no longer represented a terrorist threat. A detainee at a secret CIA detention site in Afghanistan was used as a living prop to teach trainee interrogators, who lined up to take turns at knocking his head against a plywood wall, leaving him with brain damage, according to a US government report. One of the two architects, retired Air Force psychologist Dr. Bruce Jessen, was present at COBALT prior to Rahman's death and performed a psychological evaluation on Rahman, deciding what torture techniques should be used on him "to render him compliant. Watch Black Site (Director's Cut) Streaming Online - Hulu In a concurring opinion endorsing Justice Breyers bottom line but not his reasoning, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., wrote that the executive branch was entitled to even more deference than the majority had given it. He is held as a law of war detainee, whom interagency review boards have deemed too dangerous to release. The process, Mitchell wrote in the cable, should be used as a template for future interrogation of high value captives. She worked as a metro, national and foreign correspondent with a focus on coverage of conflict in the Middle East for The Miami Herald from 1990 to 2019. In dissent, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said the government sought to avoid further embarrassment for past misdeeds., The facts are hard to face, he wrote. A 2014 report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said the C.I.A. Argument over state secrets and CIA black sites takes - SCOTUSblog Eight days later, a cable from the Thai black site was extolling the success of the three-week aggressive phase of Abu Zubaydahs interrogation, the goal of which had been to induce complete helplessness, compliance, and cooperation from the subject and to reach the stage where we have broken any will or ability of subject to resist or deny providing us information. 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." 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. Major Lyness was far more blunt about the prisoners rough treatment, which he called heinous and vile acts of torture., Majid was raped at the hands of the U.S. government, the Army major told the panel of more senior officers. Five days later, at 3pm on 19 November 2002, Rahman was shackled in a sitting position on bare concrete while nude from the waist down, the 2003 investigation recorded. A month later, as the first prisoners were delivered into its 24-hour darkness, a CIA memo described the role the two psychologists would now be playing in the agencys expanding interrogation program. The cells were designed for sensory deprivation, but the site manager put his own spin on what this would mean. Detainee can testify about his treatment at CIA black site, government Detainee can testify about his treatment at CIA black site, government tells justices. He could tell that [the site manager] was running all of his suggestions through his bullshit filter, the investigator notes from his interview with the psychologist, but Jessen said he was the guy with all the tricks. During a family trip to Pakistan in 2002 in which both he and his sister found spouses in arranged marriages he encountered relatives, cousins and an uncle who had in earlier years joined the jihad in Afghanistan and had ties to Al Qaeda. California . 1, spoke at a Chamber of Commerce event Monday, highlighting the strange gulf between the K Street titan and the GOP. In 32 clear-eyed pages, and in attachments that include a stark Chronology of Significant Events and notes from interviews with Jessen and the young CIA officer assigned to manage the black site, the investigation reconstructs the decisions that killed a prisoner just 69 days after the facility opened. Bringing the Black Sites to Light - Open Society Justice Initiative The detainee, known as Abu Zubaydah, sought to subpoena the contractors, James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, in connection with a Polish criminal investigation. For first time in public, a detainee describes torture at CIA black sites interrogator counted down from 10 before water was poured into his nose and mouth. @adamliptak Facebook, Carol Rosenberg has been covering the U.S. naval base at Guantnamo Bay, including detention operations and military commissions, since the first prisoners were brought there from Afghanistan in January 2002. Black Site: The CIA in the Post-9/11 World | National Archives Shortly thereafter, Mitchell and Jessen reportedly went to work devising and administering the CIA's brutal black site detainee torture regime, as detailed in a recent Senate report. He spoke about dungeonlike conditions, humiliating stretches of nudity with only a hood on his head, sometimes while his arms were chained in ways that made sleep impossible, and being intentionally nearly drowned in icy cold water in tubs at two sites, once while a C.I.A. But, according to the report issued by the CIA's Associate Deputy Director for Counterintelligence/Operations, investigators interviewed a person at the black site who said Rahman was "deliberately given a cold shower as a deprivation technique." His father wept through long stretches of the descriptions, at times hiding his head in his hands, while his sister, also tearful, tried to comfort him. The report said that during the flight to COBALT from Pakistan, where he was captured in October 2002, Rahman was wearing an adult diaper because detainees are prohibited from using the bathroom on the airplane. A Guantanamo Bay prisoner who went through the brutal U.S. government interrogation program after the 9/11 attacks described it openly for the first time Thursday, saying he . (modern). Mr. Khan gained attention with the release of a 2014 study of the C.I.A. To those who tortured me, I forgive you, he said, noting that while he was in custody he had rejected Al Qaeda, terrorism, violence and hatred., I hope in the day of judgment that Allah will do the same for you and for me. A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) black site detainee was used as a training prop to teach interrogators torture techniques, a newly declassified US government report revealed. Almost unanimously we all agreed that only two EITs were required for the conditioning process: walling and sleep deprivation, he wrote. The watch tower of "Camp 6" detention facility at the US Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, April 8, 2014. They promised to redeem me, and I believed them., Carol Rosenberg has been covering the U.S. naval base at Guantnamo Bay, including detention operations and military commissions, since the first prisoners were brought there from Afghanistan in January 2002. On the night Rahman died, the outside temperature was 31 degrees Fahrenheit. "We have a confrontation in this case between openness and secrecy -- major principles that have so corrosively confronted one another during this entire era of modern American history," said University of Chicago law professor and legal historian Farah Peterson. The reports said the BOP instructors were assigned to temporary duty at COBALT, training guards in "restraint techniques, escort procedures, security checks, entrance procedures, cell searches, watch calls, and patdown searches." A graduate of Yale Law School, he practiced law for 14 years before joining The Times in 2002. A proposal that they would have a hand in helping to draft a code of ethics for CIA interrogations is flatly dismissed because they had both shown blatant disregard for the ethics shared by almost all of their colleagues, the writer declares. In one, they were to study how the CIA could develop and apply less intrusive techniques. The disclosure that the CIA had destroyed the tapes most of them showing Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee taken into custody and known to be tortured by the CIA after the Sept. 11 attacks . "The two former CIA contractors who devised and implemented the torture program have twice testified under oath about what they saw, heard and did at various black sites, including what they did to Abu Zubaydah and some of what they observed at the black site at issue in this litigation," they wrote in court documents. This will allow them to determine the best physical and psychological pressures that would be needed to get this individual to a compliant state as quickly as possible. Supreme Court rejects terrorism detainee's effort to learn more about Drs Mitchell and Jessen also assert that they were unaware of the specific abuses that ultimately caused Mr Rahmans death and are also not responsible for those actions.. 5 Things to Know About Will Hurd - The New York Times Reserve a Seat. Mr Baluchi, a Kuwaiti citizen, is one of the five defendants before a military tribunal on Guantnamo Bay and is charged with participating in the plot over the 9/11 attacks. But the IG found that Rahman was not given a physical examination after he was rendered to the black site. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a war . They pitched their product in two PowerPoint presentations illustrated with what they called the Circle Metaphor, a diagram they peddled as an effective way of thinking about resistance behavior.. Appearing in open court, Majid Khan, 41, became the first former prisoner of . A composite image showing an undated photo of Abu Zubaydah and a drawing he did of his . The European Court of Human Rights, independent investigations by international advocacy groups and several former top Polish officials have each pointed to the existence of a CIA site in Poland and alleged that Zubaydah was held there. But Cobalt had been designed according to their vision of an ideal exploitation facility, and after Rahmans death all interrogators who administered EITs had to be trained and certified in Mitchell and Jessens techniques. ", The release of the reports on Rahman's death is hugely significant. The atmosphere was very good, John Bruce Jessen told a CIA investigator in January 2003, two months after he interrogated a prisoner named Gul Rahman in the facility. Until then, he said, he had straddled two worlds: his traditional Pakistani family life and that of an American teenager who smoked weed occasionally and had my share of girlfriends, both of which he hid from his mother. Upon arrival at the black site, detainees were given a physical examination and their heads and beards are shaved. The interrogators were convinced that Baluchi knew more than he was saying because he was a nephew of the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed. Dr. Mitchell has testified that he and Dr. Jessen, who had experience with an Air Force program that taught pilots how to resist torture, were hired by the C.I.A. Additionally, a luxury room has been built which has a light, a rocking chair, a table, and carpeting on the floor. Abu Zubaydahs cooperation did not correlate well with his waterboarding sessions, the CIAs office of medical services concluded in one internal review. @carolrosenberg Facebook, A version of this article appears in print on, Supreme Court to Rule on Whether C.I.A. The statement added: Drs Mitchell and Jessen assert that the abuses of Mr Salim and Mr Ben Soud occurred without their knowledge or consent and that they were not responsible for those actions. The lead prosecutor, Col. Walter Foster IV of the Army, asked the panel to focus on the 11 people who were killed and the dozens wounded in the Marriott attack. In October 2006, senior CIA interrogators, psychologists and managers reviewed all of the approved EITs and prepared a new list to present to Congress that would comply with the just-enacted Military Commissions Act. After a Detainee Died at a Black Site, the CIA Blamed Training - VICE Rahmans shaking did not seem unusual, the guard told the investigator, because all of the prisoners shake. Two hours later, a guard looked into the cell and found Rahman lying on his side. The inquiry was prompted by a determination by the European Court of Human Rights that he had been tortured in 2002 and 2003 at secret sites operated by the C.I.A., including one in Poland. "It was the assessment of the debriefers that Rahman may need to be subjected to enhanced interrogation measures to induce him to comply.". The case argued on Wednesday involves efforts to get information from the federal government for a Polish investigation into the torture of Abu Zubaydah at CIA black sites within the foreign country. For years, the government asserted that he was a plotter in the 9/11 attacks, but officials later acknowledged that he was not tied to the operation, according to the 2014 report. He conceded that the location of the black site had been acknowledged by an international tribunal and a former president of Poland. Four months after Rahman died, the CIA station chief in Afghanistan recommended that Zirbel, the manager of COBALT who conducted interrogation sessions with Rahman, be awarded $2,500 for his "consistently superior work," according to the Senate's torture report. Guantanamo Bay: Sixty-year old Iraqi detainee . CIA 'black site' detainee used as a prop to teach interrogators torture In the case of walling in particular the [Office of the Inspector General] had difficulty determining whether the session was designed to elicit information from Ammar or to ensure that all interrogator trainees received their certification, the report read. the court reversed a win for the first "War on Terror" detainee Abu Zubaydah, who was seeking information as part of a Polish investigation into his torture at an . Artur Reszko/Agence France-Presse Getty Images. (Art Lien) The Biden administration told the Supreme Court on Friday that a Palestinian man who has been in U.S. custody for nearly 20 years could provide testimony for use in a Polish criminal . Supreme Court justices gripped by case of 9/11 detainee: 'We want a FORT MEADE, Md. Seated from left: Associate Justice Samuel Alito, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, standing from left: Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch and Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 2021. The APA Relied on the CIA for Ethical Guidance - Truthout The direct assessment, called a mental state exam, can be done shortly after the initial capture by either Jim or Bruce, it said. This prevented Rahman from sitting down. contractors involved in torturing him, ruling that the. The interrogators would grab the ends of the towel in front of and below the detainees face and shove [Mr Baluchi] backwards into the wall, never letting go of the towel, it said. On Tuesday, The Guardian' s Spencer Ackerman reported on the "equivalent of a CIA black site" operated by police in Chicago. Ben Souds and Salims experience seemed to a herald an era when enhanced interrogations were becoming routine. One former trainee told investigators all the interrogation students lined up to wall Ammar so that [the instructor] could certify them on their ability to use the technique., The report said that: In the case of walling in particular the [Office of the Inspector General] had difficulty determining whether the session was designed to elicit information from Ammar or to ensure that all interrogator trainees received their certification.. He is the first former prisoner of the C.I.A. contractors poured water up his nose and down his throat, bringing him within sight of death, Mr. Zubaydahs lawyers told the justices. All rights reserved. called it rectal refeeding. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Papers that the Pentagon and CIA were forced to declassify as part of a lawsuit brought by victims reveal the fullest picture ever of the secret enhanced interrogation regime and the men who designed it.