Torture Allegations<\/strong><\/p>\nLast weekend, author Mark Danner disclosed a report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), concluding that the abuse of 14 \u201chigh-value\u201d detainees \u201cconstituted torture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, many other elements of the ill treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,\u201d according to the ICRC report. Since the ICRC\u2019s responsibilities involve ensuring compliance with the Geneva Conventions and supervising the treatment of prisoners of war, the organization\u2019s findings carry legal weight.<\/p>\n
The ICRC report also found that there was a consistency in many details from the detainees who were interviewed separately and that the first \u201chigh-value\u201d detainee to be captured, Abu Zubaydah, appeared to have been used as something of a test case by his interrogators. Zubaydah was one of the prisoners whose interrogations were videotaped by the CIA.<\/p>\n
Another detainee subjected to waterboarding and other abuse was Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. Two weeks ago, the Justice Department released a heavily censored page of what appears to be a CIA internal report about the torture of \u201cwar on terror\u201d detainees, which read: \u201cInterrogators administered [redacted] waterboard to Al-Nashiri.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same page indicated that a dozen of the 92 destroyed videotapes of the CIA\u2019s interrogations were of detainees undergoing brutal treatment. \u201cThere are 92 videotapes, 12 of which include EIT [enhanced interrogation techniques] applications,\u201d the page says.<\/p>\n
The ACLU criticized the Justice Department for continuing to withhold documents related to the destruction of the torture tapes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government is still needlessly withholding information about these tapes from the public, despite the fact that the CIA’s use of torture is well known,\u201d said Amrit Singh, staff attorney with the ACLU. \u201cFull disclosure of the CIA’s illegal interrogation methods is long overdue and the agency must be held accountable for flouting the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the ACLU\u2019s FOIA lawsuit, the destruction of the CIA tapes has been the subject of a year-long criminal investigation by John Durham, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia who was appointed special prosecutor last year by Attorney General Michael Mukasey.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the ACLU called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush administration officials who signed off on and approved the torture of prisoners.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that such crimes have been committed can no longer be doubted or debated, nor can the need for an independent prosecutor be ignored by a new Justice Department committed to restoring the rule of law,\u201d said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the increasing evidence of deliberate and widespread use of torture and abuse, and that such conduct was the predictable result of policy changes made at the highest levels of government, an independent prosecutor is clearly in the public interest,\u201d Romero said.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department\u2019s restrictive handling of the 3,000 documents comes one day after Attorney General Holder issued sweeping new Freedom of Information guidelines for all Executive Branch agencies to \u201capply a presumption of openness when administering the FOIA.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American people have the right to information about their government\u2019s activities, and these new guidelines will ensure they are able to obtain that information under principles of openness and transparency,\u201d Holder said Thursday. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Holder said FOIA requests would be denied and records withheld \u201conly if the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or disclosure is prohibited by law.\u201d But even then, all federal agencies were directed to at least \u201crelease records in part whenever they cannot be released in full.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The CIA has about 3,000 documents related to the 92 destroyed videotapes that showed \u201cwar on terror\u201d detainees being subjected to harsh interrogations, the Justice Department has disclosed, suggesting an extensive back-and-forth between CIA field operatives and officials of the Bush administration. By Jason Leopold The Justice Department said the documents include \u201ccables, memoranda, notes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1616,16],"tags":[51,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-5346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-usa-news","7":"category-war-terrorism","8":"tag-torture","9":"tag-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}