Walling is a method of torture used by the CIA in which a person's neck is encircled by a collar, and is then used to slam the person against a wall. According to information gathered by the International Committee of the Red Cross from six detainees, "walling" meant "beating by use of a collar", in at least one instance against a concrete wall. [1] [ page needed ]
Prompted to explain their interrogation techniques to the United States Department of Justice in 2005, the CIA provided a series of memos to the department's Office of Legal Counsel, one of which described "walling". The memo states that walling "involves the use of a flexible, false wall ... the interrogator pulls the individual forward and then quickly and firmly pushes the individual into the wall. It is the individual's shoulder blades that hit the wall. During this motion, the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel". [1] [ page needed ] [2] [3]
Steven G. Bradbury, a Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General during the Bush administration, said that walling "involves what may be characterized as rough handling".
According to a report by the CIA Inspector General, Ammar al-Baluchi suffered brain damage after being used as a "training prop" for interrogators. [4]
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).
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally, water is poured intermittently to prevent death; however, if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can last for months, and psychological effects for years. The term "water board torture" appeared in press reports as early as 1976.
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.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi is a Mauritanian engineer who was detained at Guantánamo Bay detention camp without charge from 2002 until his release on October 17, 2016.
Ammar al-Balushi or Amar Baloch; born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali on 29 August 1977) is a Pakistani (Balochi) citizen who has been in American custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2006. He was arrested in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2003 before being transferred; the series of criminal charges against him include: "facilitating the 9/11 attackers, acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden and plotting to crash a plane packed with explosives into the U.S. consulate in Karachi." He is a nephew of the Pakistani terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who served as a senior official of al-Qaeda between the late 1980s and early 2000s; and a cousin of the Pakistani terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who played a key role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bombing, and the high-profile Bojinka plot.
The five techniques, also known as deep interrogation, are a group of interrogation methods developed by the United Kingdom during the 20th century and are currently regarded as a form of torture. Originally developed by British forces in a variety of 20th-century conflicts, they are most notable for being applied to detainees in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The five collective methods are prolonged wall-standing, hooding, subjection to noise, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink.
Binyam Ahmed Mohamed, also referred to as Benjamin Mohammed, Benyam Mohammed or Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi, is an Ethiopian national and United Kingdom resident, who was detained as a suspected enemy combatant by the US Government in Guantanamo Bay prison between 2004 and 2009 without charges. He was arrested in Pakistan and transported first to Morocco under the US's extraordinary rendition program, where he claimed to have been interrogated under torture.
The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) is an office in the United States Department of Justice that supports the attorney general in their role as legal adviser to the president and all executive branch agencies. It drafts legal opinions of the attorney general and provides its own written opinions and other advice in response to requests from the counsel to the president, the various agencies of the executive branch, and other components of the Department of Justice. The office reviews and comments on the constitutionality of pending legislation. The office reviews any executive orders and substantive proclamations for legality if the president proposes them. All proposed orders of the attorney general and regulations that require the attorney general's approval are reviewed. It also performs a variety of special assignments referred by the attorney general or the deputy attorney general.
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.
The US Army Field Manual on Interrogation, sometimes known by the military nomenclature FM 34-52, is a 177-page manual describing to military interrogators how to conduct effective interrogations while conforming with US and international law. It has been replaced by FM 2-22.3 Human Intelligence Collector Operations.
Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, alias Zubair Zaid, is a Malaysian who is alleged to be a senior member of Jemaah Islamiyah and al Qaeda. He is currently in American custody in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He is one of the 14 detainees who had previously been held for years at CIA black sites. In the ODNI biographies of those 14, Amin is described as a direct subordinate of Hambali. Farik Amin is also a cousin of well-known Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli Abdhir.
There are cases, both documented and alleged, that involve the usage of torture by members of the United States government, military, law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, health care services, and other public organizations both in and out of the country.
"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.
This article deals with the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the federal government of the United States that constitute violations of human rights.
Steven Gill Bradbury is an American lawyer and government official who served as the General Counsel of the United States Department of Transportation. He previously served as Acting Assistant Attorney General (AAG) from 2005 to 2007 and Principal Deputy AAG from 2004 to 2009, heading the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in the U.S. Department of Justice during President George W. Bush's second term.
Rafiq Bin Bashir Bin Jalud al Hami is a citizen of Tunisia, who was formerly held for over seven years without charge or trial in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 892. The Department of Defense reports that he was born on 14 March 1969, in Tunisia.
Gul Rahman was an Afghan man, suspected by the United States of being a militant, who was a victim of torture. He died in a secret CIA prison, or black site, located in northern Kabul, Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit. He had been captured October 29, 2002.
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".
John Anthony Rizzo was an American attorney who worked as a lawyer in the Central Intelligence Agency for 34 years. He was the deputy counsel or acting general counsel of the CIA for the first nine years of the War on Terror, during which the CIA held dozens of detainees in black site prisons around the globe.
The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detention and Interrogation Program and its use of torture during interrogation in U.S. government communiqués on detainees in CIA custody. The report covers CIA activities before, during, and after the "War on Terror". The initial report was approved on December 13, 2012, by a vote of 9–6, with seven Democrats, one Independent, and one Republican voting in favor of the report and six Republicans voting in opposition.