Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Senate Report Shows CIA Agents Used Torture Techniques Not Approved By DOJ Or CIA

By Mike Masnick | Techdirt | April 4, 2014

While the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally started the process of declassifying at least some of the $40 million, 6,300 page report about the CIA’s torture efforts, we’re getting more and more leaks about what’s in the report. Previous leaks showed that the torture program was completely useless and that the CIA simply lied about its effectiveness (in fact, taking information gleaned by others through normal interrogations, and claiming they got it via torture). The latest leak highlights how, despite claims by the CIA’s supporters, that the torture was done in “good faith” and was approved by the DOJ and the CIA, it turns out (of course), that the CIA’s torturers actually went much further than they were approved to go.

CIA officers subjected terror suspects it held after the Sept. 11 attacks to methods that were not approved by either the Justice Department or their own headquarters and illegally detained 26 of the 119 in CIA custody, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded in its still-secret report, McClatchy has learned.

The spy agency program’s reliance on brutal and harsh techniques _ much more abusive than previously known _ and its failure to gather valuable information from the detainees, harmed the U.S.’s credibility internationally, according to the committee’s findings in its scathing 6,300 page report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention program.

So, again, we have evidence that the CIA tortured people, did so beyond any actual authority (as sketchy as such an authority might be), got nothing of value from the torture, and then repeatedly lied about the torture and the value of it to Congress and the American public. And… no one is going to jail over this. Well, except for the guy who blew the whistle. In fact, many of those responsible for the torture program are still in positions of power. This is a total disgrace.

April 5, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lebanese ‘tortured by Mossad agents in Nigeria’

Press TV – August 6, 2013

Two Lebanese nationals, who are on trial in Nigeria, have told a court that they were subjected to torture by Israeli Mossad agents after being arrested.

Mustapha Fawaz and Abdallah Thahini together with another Lebanese national Talal Ahmad Roda were arrested in May after an arms cache was discovered in a residence in the Nigerian city of Kano.

The three Lebanese men reportedly own a supermarket and an amusement park in Abuja, which have been closed since their arrests.

Fawaz told the court on Monday that after he was arrested in Abuja, a security official told him that some “European friends” wanted to ask him some questions.

“I was taken to an interrogation room where I met three Israeli Mossad agents,” he said.

Fawaz also said the interrogators handcuffed his hands behind his back for days, noting he “lost count because they did not allow me to sleep for several days.”

He went on saying, “During the 14 days of interrogation, I was interrogated by six Israeli Mossad agents and one masked white man.”

“I was interrogated in Arabic. I asked to be interrogated in English, but they refused. Most of them are weak in English. They are not Europeans, but Israelis,” he also said, adding no Nigerian official was present during the interrogations.

Thahini gave similar account to the court, saying he collapsed five days after the interrogators did not allow him to sleep.

Related article

August 6, 2013 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lawyer: “Prior To His Death, Detainee Complained Of Pain Due To Ongoing Interrogation”

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | February 24, 2013

jaradatAttorney Kamil Sabbagh, who represented detainee Arafat Jaradat, who died Saturday at an Israeli interrogation facility, stated that Jaradat complained to him of sharp pain due to ongoing and extensive interrogation.

The lawyer said that he represented Jaradat during a court session that was held Thursday February 21.

The court session was the first time the detainee was able to see a lawyer since the army kidnapped him more than 12 days ago. The hearing was held at the Al-Jalama detention and interrogation center.

Sabbagh said that Jaradat complained of sharp pain in the back, and several other parts of his body. Jaradat told his lawyer that he was interrogated for several hours, every day, and repeatedly complained of sharp pain but was never seen by a physician.

The lawyer said that, during the court hearing, he told the military judge about the complaints made by Jaradat, and that the judge instructed the prison administration to grant him the needed medical attention, but the request was apparently ignored.

During the court hearing, the judge ordered Jaradat under interrogation for an additional 12 days.

Following the death of Jaradat on Saturday, several Israeli media agencies claimed that the detainee suffered a heart attack that led to his death.

Palestinian Minister of Detainees, Issa Qaraqe’, held Israel responsible for the death of Jaradat, and said that the detainee died only six days after the army kidnapped him on February 18.

Qaraqe’ demanded forming an international committee to investigate the death of Jaradat, and held Israel responsible for the lives of Palestinian detainees on hunger strike demanding an end to their illegal detention.

Hundreds of Palestinians held a protest in front of the home of Jaradat and chanted slogans against the Israeli occupation, Israel’s ongoing violations and attacks, and chanted for more solidarity with all Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel.

Protests have also been reported in different parts of the occupied territories.

February 24, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

FBI ‘Primer’ Instructs Interrogators to Break Detainees Through Isolation

By Kevin Gosztola | FireDogLake | August 2, 2012

A “primer” from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) seems to encourage the use of isolation to break down prisoners in overseas prisons. Published in 2011, it advocates the use of this coercive measure to break detainees ahead of interrogations, which violates or runs contrary to FBI policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) obtained the “primer” through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Devon Chaffee, Legislative Council for the ACLU, says it is the first document she has seen “that’s written by an FBI agent” and “explicitly recommends that FBI agents recommend that detainees be put in isolation.”

Here is part of the primer that led the ACLU to be concerned:

…For the safety of other detainees in the facility, detainees fresh from the battlefield should be detained in individual cells until complete assessment can be made. The assessment can be considered to be complete when the decision has been made whether to release the detainee or send him to long term detention facility. Additionally, access to anything above the baseline level of treatment provided to all detainees should be strictly controlled by the assigned Interrogator. Granting this authority and control to the Interrogator places the Interrogator in a position of power that can provide an advantage when crafting an approach strategy.

Isolation of the detainee not only ensures the safety of other detainees but also prevents the individual detainee from drawing strength from the support and companionship of other detainees It also prevents collusion on cover stories between detainees. A large part of the Interrogators advantage is the natural fear of the unknown that the detainee will be experiencing. Exposure to other detainees will mitigate that fear. You may not be in a position to influence how your subject is held, but at a minimum you should know if he has been held in a communal cell prior to interrogation…

Chaffee considers this to be problematic because “isolation was component of many of the abusive interrogations that took place” after the September 11th attacks. Isolation can lead to serious abuses in interrogation. The FBI also has a policy that prohibits the “use of coercion in interrogation” and the FBI and Supreme Court have recognized that “isolation in interrogation is an indication of coercion.” [For these reasons, the ACLU sent a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller.]

The FBI would presumably contend the isolation is only done for so-called security purposes, however, additional language in the “primer” makes it clear the isolation is intended to inflict a psychological impact on detainees so they are essentially in a state of “learned helplessness” (like what the CIA has done to detainees in their custody whom they’ve tortured).

…[D]etainees should not be held in the clothing they are captured in. Detaining a subject in his own clothing could impact negatively on the health and safety of detention facility personnel and other detainees in the facility. Having the detainee change into hospital pajamas, or some other generic clothing, and flip flops has the added benefit of removing a potential source of comfort and an anchor to the world outside the detention facility. This is an important step in the process of detaching the detainee from the outside world and replacing his concern for his cause and his colleagues with a concern for his own fate…

…In order to create the optimum conditions for a productive interview, if the policy of the facility permits, consider having your detainee placed in an individual cell several days before you begin interrogation. If you are conducting law enforcement interviews in a DOD facility, a formal request from the FBI must be made to isolate a detainee. This request must be approved by the first O-6 in the chain of command.

Keep in mind that a thorough interrogation may be a multi-session, multi-day process. Having your subject return to a communal cell between sessions is completely counterproductive. A subject returning to a communal cell will feel pressure from fellow detainees based on the duration of his absence from the cell and the knowledge that he will be questioned by his peers upon his return. Isolation of your subject removes this intangible, but extremely powerful, influence from your subject. [emphasis added]

Chaffee notes, ”There are some legitimate administrative reasons why a detainee for a limited amount of time would need to be isolated, potentially at his request or for his protection from other detainees in the facility, for instance.” But, “the way that it is described and the language that is being used” suggests the isolation is being employed to “break a detainee’s will” and that to the ACLU “seems inherently coercive.”

Also, there is no need to “separate the detainee from the entire population” if collusion is suspected. Just separate the detainee from the detainee(s) he is suspected of colluding with. And, if a decision to separate detainees needs to be made, the head of the facility should make that decision. Why should an FBI interrogator be in a position to make this decision?

It is unclear if this encouragement for isolation is re-emerging in policy. However, Chaffee argues the FBI should not be asking foreign governments or other agencies to engage in conduct that the FBI agents are prohibited from engaging in, especially when this conduct could potentially lead to human rights abuses.

A final note: creating a state of “learned helplessness” in a prisoner, a concept developed by positive psychologist Martin Seligman, can deliberately make that prisoner ill.

This post by David Dobbs over at ScienceBlogs.com (a partner with National Geographic) explains that “some studies have shown ‘learned helplessness’ to be an apt model for major depression from both a behavioral and even a neurological perspective. In a sense, then, to intentionally produce it in someone by causing them pain and distress in a situation they are powerless to change is to inflict on them a mental illness.” Inducing a state of helplessness or depression in a person through isolation—which is torture—will likely make a human very ill.

Given this scientific reality, the FBI’s ‘primer’ unmistakably encourages the cruel and inhuman treatment of prisoners.

Related articles

August 3, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Gov’t interrogations decision will prompt increased use of torture

A recent decision to prevent the recording of security interrogation means a return to the norms of the witch trials.

Yossi Gurvitz | +972 | March 19 2012

The Israeli government recently made permanent a temporary order – in force for 11 years – that permits the police to avoid documenting security interrogations, Haaretz has reported (Hebrew). Regular criminal interrogations are taped; that will not be the case in matters of suspected security violations. We can safely assume that once the police are allowed not to tape an interrogation, they will not tape it. It saves resources, for starters.

The government’s decision creates a practical distinction between the rights of criminal suspects and security suspects. Criminal suspects have the right to demand, if they are prosecuted, their recorded interrogation which, theoretically, can allow them to prove their confession was forced, or that the description given by the police of what happened in the interrogation room is incorrect. It is a theoretical right because no Israeli court has ever found that such a suspect was tortured – except in very few cases, and almost always after the victims had already been jailed for quite some time.

Security suspects have no such rights. Actually, there will be no independent documentation of their interrogations. The courts will have to take the police’s word for what happened in the interrogation room. This will make it much harder for the accused to prove they were tortured. The problematic history of the police forces prompts a clear conclusion: we will soon have a secret police, whether formal or informal, composed of interrogators whose specialty will be torture.

This has several implications. First, torture leads to more false convictions. It is their function: the torturer is not looking for the truth, he is trying to extract a confession and close the file, and he is indifferent to the question of whether the broken person before him (and breaking a person is what torture is intended to do) is guilty or not. The point of torture, noted Orwell, is torture.

Secondly, such units attract sadists. That the torturer suffers more than the tortured is a myth told to sooth those of anxious conscience. Those sadists will then move on to other positions in the system, taking their unique work ethic with them. Thirdly, the use of torture degenerates the interrogator’s mind. He gets used to thinking that some pain and humiliation will obtain the desired result, and forgets how a true interrogation ought to be carried out. Should one need an example of this process, it is readily available in the abysmal record of the ISA (aka Shin Bet) in fighting Jewish terrorism. If torture is not an option, they can’t get the job done.

Fourth, and most worrying, is the fact that such units tend to expand their activities. The excuse of “public safety” is very wide indeed. After the ISA was denied the right to torture except in the case of “ticking bombs,” there was a dramatic increase in the number of interrogations designated as such – even though the public was never supplied with a full and open description of a single ticking bomb case.

The police – which have for years served as an ISA auxiliary force, with a police interrogator writing down the confession extracted by the ISA officer from a Palestinian detainee as if it was given of his free will – now claims that taping such interrogations may expose “investigative methods.” That’s true. That, however, is also true in the case of criminal investigations. This is the price of the rule of law: it allows the suspect/accused the right to defend himself against the government, and that means that, from time to time, interrogations tricks are exhausted. That’s life. Deal with it. … Full article

Related articles

March 20, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment