Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Gordon Richard England is an American politician and businessman who was the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and twice served as the U.S. Secretary of the Navy in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Janis Leigh Karpinski is a retired career officer in the United States Army Reserve. She is notable for having commanded the forces that operated Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq in 2003 and 2004,at the time of the scandal related to torture and prisoner abuse. She commanded three prisons in Iraq and the forces that ran them. Her education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and secondary education from Kean College,a Master of Arts degree in aviation management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University,and a Master of Arts in strategic studies from the United States Army War College.
Mohammed Mani Ahmad al-Qahtani is a Saudi citizen who was detained as an al-Qaeda operative for 20 years in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Qahtani allegedly tried to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks as the 20th hijacker and was due to be onboard United Airlines Flight 93 along with the four other hijackers. He was refused entry due to suspicions that he was trying to illegally immigrate. He was later captured in Afghanistan in the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001.
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army major general who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba,and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison,Camp Cropper,and Camp Bucca. He is noted for having trained soldiers in using torture,or "enhanced interrogation techniques" in US euphemism,and for carrying out the "First Special Interrogation Plan," signed by the Secretary of Defense,against a Guantanamo detainee.
Yaser Esam Hamdi is a former American citizen who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001. The United States government claims that he was fighting with the Taliban against U.S. and Afghan Northern Alliance forces. He was declared an "illegal enemy combatant" by the Bush administration and detained for almost three years without charge. On October 9,2004,on the condition that he renounce his U.S. citizenship and commit to travel prohibitions and other conditions,the government released him and deported him to Saudi Arabia,where he had been raised.
Albert Thomas Church III is a retired vice admiral in the United States Navy. Church served as on active duty for 36 years,retiring as a vice admiral in 2005. During his service he commanded two warships,the Navy's largest shore installation at Naval Station Norfolk,Virginia,and was the longest-serving budget director of the Navy (1998–2002). Church also served as the Naval Inspector General,during which time he completed a comprehensive review of interrogation techniques used by the Department of Defense in Iraq,Afghanistan,and at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba. He is currently president of Prescient Edge Corporation,a US-based national security services and technology Firm.
Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States,in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism,refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context,the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers,called black sites,operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists,investigations,and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there,and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong,and had nothing to hide.
Alberto JoséMora is a former General Counsel of the Navy. He led an effort within the Defense Department to oppose the legal theories of John Yoo and to try to end the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp,also known as GTMO or GITMO,is a United States military prison within Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB),on the coast of Guantánamo Bay,Cuba. It was established in January 2002 by U.S. President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects and "illegal enemy combatants" during the Global War on Terrorism following the attacks of September 11,2001. As of August 2024,at least 780 persons from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since its creation,of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere,9 died in custody,and 30 remain;only 16 detainees have ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
Charles D. Swift is an American attorney and former career Navy officer,who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan,a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay;Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court. In 2005 and June 2006,the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.
The Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) is an organization created in early 2002 by the United States Department of Defense to conduct investigations of detainees captured in the War on Terrorism. It was envisioned that certain captured individuals would be tried by a military tribunal for war crimes and/or acts of terrorism.
William James "Jim" Haynes II is an American lawyer and was General Counsel of the Department of Defense during much of 43rd President George W. Bush's administration and his war on terror. Haynes resigned as general counsel effective March 2008.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Abu Ghraib,Bagram,Bucharest,and Guantanamo Bay—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating,binding in contorted stress positions,hooding,subjection to deafening noise,sleep disruption,sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination,deprivation of food,drink,and medical care for wounds,as well as waterboarding,walling,sexual humiliation,rape,sexual assault,subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold,and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures,to which he himself was subjected,were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration","rectal fluid resuscitation",and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees,there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children,and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Kevin M. Sandkuhler is an American lawyer,and retired brigadier general in the United States Marine Corps. His 2003 memo expressing concerns about the US interrogation of terrorism suspects,released in 2005 after a declassification request by Senator Lindsey Graham,received national and international attention.
A number of incidents stemming from the September 11 attacks have raised questions about legality.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee,head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency,the United States Department of Defense,and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation,binding in stress positions,and waterboarding—and stated that such acts,widely regarded as torture,might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
Mary Walker is an American lawyer who served as a high-ranking appointee under Presidents Ronald Reagan,George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
Michael E. Dunlavey is a former major general in the United States Army. Following his retirement from the Army he was elected a State Judge in Erie Pennsylvania.
Richard Patrick Zuley is a former homicide detective in the United States who had a 37-year career in the Chicago Police Department. He is most known for obtaining confessions from suspects by torture. Since the early 2000s,some of these convictions have been investigated and overturned as wrongful,following allegations that he had tortured and/or framed suspects. Since 2013 he has been the subject of several civil suits from inmates claiming abuse and frame-ups to gain convictions.
