ACLU: Newly Released Detainee Statements Provide More Evidence Of CIA Torture Program

[kpete]

Source: ACLU

Newly Released Detainee Statements Provide More Evidence Of CIA Torture Program (6/15/2009)

CIA Continues To Suppress Information From Detainee Tribunals With Heavy Redactions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: [phone]; [email protected]

............................

"The documents released today provide further evidence of brutal torture and abuse in the CIA's interrogation program and demonstrate beyond doubt that this information has been suppressed solely to avoid embarrassment and growing demands for accountability," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead attorney on the FOIA lawsuit. "There is no legitimate basis for the Obama administration's continued refusal to disclose allegations of detainee abuse, and we will return to court to seek the full release of these documents."

The newly unredacted information includes statements from the CSRTs of former CIA detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed Al Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah and Majid Khan, including descriptions of torture and coercion. These statements include:

*** • Abu Zubaydah: "After months of suffering and torture, physically and mentally, they did not care about my injuries that they inflicted to my eye, to my stomach, to my bladder, and my left thigh and my reproductive organs. They didn't care that I almost died from these injuries. Doctors told me that I nearly died four times." "They say 'this in your diary.' They say 'see you want to make operation against America.' I say no, the idea is different. They say no, torturing, torturing. I say 'okay, I do. I was decide to make operation.'"

• Al Nashiri: " drown me in water."

• Muhammad: "This is what I understand he told me: you are not American and you are not on American soil. So you cannot ask about the Constitution."

• Khan: "In the end, any classified information you have is through…agencies who physically and mentally tortured me."

Read more: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/39868prs20090615.html

[Wednesdays]

1. K&R

:kick:

[IndianaGreen]

2. ACLU calls on Obama to quit stonewalling

"The Obama administration should make good on its commitment to transparency, stop suppressing information about torture and abuse and hold accountable the officials who put unlawful policies in place."

[AlphaCentauri]

3. from Amnesty International

Obama must prosecute Bush-era torture enablers

With Dick Cheney and the infamous torture memos making headlines, President Obama and our nation face a choice. Should they prosecute or protect those responsible for the torture of detainees in secret CIA detention centers? If our leaders wish to steer our country back to the right side of the law, they must act immediately and unequivocally to prosecute.

The problem is that leading senators want the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to complete its investigation into the treatment and interrogation of detainees (which could take between four and six months), before any prosecution is launched. Yet such a delay would potentially risk running out the clock on certain types of prosecution.

The federal Anti-Torture Act, for example, is subject to a statute of limitations after only eight years. For the prosecution of crimes committed in the months leading up to September 2002 – when Bush administration lawyers produced the first of the "torture memos" that purported to make torture legally permissible – that expiration date is spring 2010.

But there is no need to wait that long. There is already ample evidence that shows the previous administration concocted, approved, and implemented a torture policy. What's more, there is no legal imperative holding the Department of Justice or federal prosecutors back from launching a criminal investigation, beginning with the task of identifying who is responsible for the crimes that have already been documented.

Although the Senate Intelligence Committee report may eventually provide some insights, it cannot be a substitute for the criminal investigations required for prosecution. But given the committee's possible complicity in allowing torture to continue despite multiple Central Intelligence Agency briefings, we should not expect its report to break much new ground.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0615/p09s01-coop.html

[Solly Mack]

4. K&R

[No Elephants]

5. K & R. This sickens.