Pre-trial in Guantanamo for 9/11 suspects

CIA Psychologists Sue CIA For Documents To Prove Torture Program Wasn’t Their Idea

WASHINGTON ― The two CIA-contracted psychologists accused of crafting the spy agency’s so-called “enhanced interrogation program” want the U.S. government to turn over documents they hope will show the torture program wasn’t their fault.

The motion to compel the documents, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Monday, alleged that the CIA and Justice Department had been uncooperative in supplying James Elmer Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen with “documents critical to their defense.”

Their request is related to a separate ongoing lawsuit in Spokane, Washington, where the American Civil Liberties Union, on behalf of three former CIA detainees, is suing Jessen and Mitchell for their alleged role in creating and implementing an interrogation program that used techniques now considered to be torture.

The pair was hired by the CIA as contractors in 2002, as the agency was rounding up individuals suspected of having ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban and interrogating them in secret black sites around the world. Jessen and Mitchell’s company ultimately collected $81 million for their work...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/cia-psychologists-sue-torture_us_57bcd359e4b03d51368b9167

Here the Rain Never Finishes

CIA Releases New and Gruesome Details on Its Torture Program

The CIA released 50 new documents yesterday relating to its post-9/11 torture and rendition program. Despite the many disclosures that have come in the course of our decade-long fight to reveal the details of the program, the new revelations still have the capacity to shock.

The documents, released in response to an ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, vividly depict the brutality of torture, and further expose the fiction that this abuse is a scientific method for extracting information from victims. The documents also reveal how hard the CIA worked to bury the evidence of its crimes — including by seeking to silence its victims.

A few of the many new findings include:

CIA pressure to “break” detainees was deadly. A newly released CIA inspector general report about the death of detainee Gul Rahman concluded that he was singled out for especially harsh torture because of “pressure” to “break him.” We learned that he was kept nude or in a diaper for most of his detention, “solely for humiliation.” When they ran out of diapers, the guards would use “a handcrafted diaper secured by duct tape.” CIA torturers kept Rahman naked in “cold conditions with minimal food or sleep” and kept questioning him even when he “appeared incoherent.” When they decided he wasn’t sufficiently “broken,” CIA personnel brutalized, starved, and froze him to death — and then lied about it.

We also learned just why the CIA and Bruce Jessen, one of the psychologists who designed the program, considered Rahman “resistant,” leading to torture so extreme that it resulted in his death. Based on pseudoscientific theories of torture and “resistance,” they assessed Rahman to have a “sophisticated level of resistance training,” because — among other reasons — he “complained about poor treatment” and said he couldn’t “think due to conditions (cold).” No one has yet been held accountable for Mr. Rahman’s death, but the ACLU represents Mr. Rahman’s family in suing Jensen and James Mitchell, the other psychologist who collaborated with the CIA in designing and overseeing the torture program...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/cia-releases-new-and-gruesome-details-its-torture-program

Brother of ‘Guantanamo Diary’ author denied entry to US

US authorities detained, interrogated and sent back a German citizen flying in to campaign for the release of his brother – author of the best-selling “Guantanamo Diary,” who has been imprisoned and tortured at the US camp since 2002.
Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s memoir, heavily redacted by government censors, was published in 2015 and quickly became a best-seller. The Mauritanian native was arrested in 2001 and rendered to Jordan for interrogation by the CIA. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay the following year.

His younger brother Yahdih, a German citizen, has campaigned for Mohamedou’s release for years. Yahdih was supposed to attend a number of events in the US this week, seeking to persuade Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Board to set Mohamedou free at the June 2 hearing.

When Yahdih Slahi arrived at the John F. Kennedy airport in New York on Saturday, however, he was detained by US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents, questioned for hours, and sent back to Germany the following day, The Intercept reported.

“He was asked questions about his family, his brother, and what he knew about why his brother was in Guantánamo,” said Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It was a harrowing, stressful, and exhausting experience.”...

https://www.rt.com/usa/344248-gitmo-diary-brother-banned/

Did Gitmo "Suicides" Cover Up Murder? U.S. Sgt. Speaks Out on Deaths & Prison's Secret CIA Site

In a month marking its 13th anniversary, we look at one of the great mysteries of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay: What happened the night of June 9, 2006, when three prisoners died? The Pentagon said the three — Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, Salah Ahmed al-Salami and Mani Shaman al-Utaybi — all committed suicide. But were they actually tortured to death at a secret CIA black site at the base? In a broadcast exclusive, we are joined by Joseph Hickman, a Guantánamo staff sergeant and author of the new book, "Murder at Camp Delta: A Staff Sergeant’s Pursuit of the Truth About Guantánamo Bay." We are also joined by Professor Mark Denbeaux, director of Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Policy and Research, which has just published the new report, "Guantánamo: America’s Battle Lab."...
...NERMEEN SHAIKH: What did you know about the site when you first came across it that night on June 9th, 2006?

JOSEPH HICKMAN: I knew a little bit about it beforehand. We didn’t know—we didn’t know much at all at the time. We discovered it while we were on a mobile patrol one day, when we stopped to take a break, me and a couple other soldiers. I’ll actually never forget the day, because when we stopped, it was hot. We just wanted to take a break and find some shade under some brush. And when we did stop, we noticed a fence in concertina wire, so we got close to it to see what was there, me and another soldier that was in the Humvee with me at the time. And when we went up to the fence, we could actually see the buildings of Camp No. And they were—they looked exactly like a detainee facility, like Camp Echo or Camp—it was constructed the same way. So we knew—we just knew it was a detainee facility. It was a KBR building, it looked like. And I just remember the guy I was with, the guard I was with, he just said, "You know what we just found?" And I said, "What do you think it is?" And he said, "We just found our Auschwitz." And I’ll never forget that day, and I’ll never forget when he said that.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: What gave him the impression? Why did he say Auschwitz?

JOSEPH HICKMAN: Well, it was obvious to us it was a detainee holding facility that was completely off the books....

...And General Dunleavy and his successor General Miller have both repeatedly characterized Guantánamo as America’s battle lab.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what does that mean?

MARK DENBEAUX: Well, the best thing that we’ve been able to figure out when we started looking—that phrase caught everybody’s attention. And so, the first thing that we looked into was: What were the experiments there? And we were able to find and discover some of the laboratory experiments were there, including giving them drugs that would cause psychotic breaks for up to 30 days, as soon as they arrived, and a variety of other things that were given to them over a long period of time.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Which had never been used in any other context before.

MARK DENBEAUX: The drug they used, they claimed, was to help with malaria. However, there is no malaria in Guantánamo, there is no malaria in Cuba, and every person who was brought there had already had a medical examination in Afghanistan and was proven to have no contagious diseases. So, it was a psychotic, really, inducing drug, which had been used for a considerable period of time by other sources in order to break down the state of mind of the people in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Denbeaux, you’re saying that this camp was used to experiment on people...

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/15/did_gitmo_suicides_cover_up_murder

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_homicide_accusations#Joseph_Hickman_account

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Camp-Delta-Sergeants-Guantanamo/dp/1451650809/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mefloquine#Adverse_effects

Wiki: Adolph McQueen

McQueen first joined the United States Marine Corps, in the enlisted ranks, in 1971.[1] Eleven years later, in 1982, he received a direct commission into the United States Army.

He graduated from Wayne State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice and earned a Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies from the United States Army War College.

McQueen's military education included: Command and General Staff Officer Course, Associate Logistics Executive Development Course, Adjutant General Officer Branch Qualification Course, Military Police Officer Advanced Course, and the Quartermaster Officer Advanced Course.

First commander, Joint Detention Group, Guantanamo[edit source | edit]

In 2002, when he was a Colonel, he was the first commander of Joint Detention Group, responsible for Joint Task Force Guantanamo's guard force.[2][3]

James Yee, the Guantanamo Bay detention camps' first Muslim chaplain, reported to McQueen.[2] In his book For God and country: faith and patriotism under fire, Yee reported an escalating series of problems, including the role McQueen played.

In 2003 BBC News reporters described McQueen personally curtailing their tour of Guantanamo when captives were allowed to see them, and called out to them.[4][5] The BBC crew was sent home the next day, while other journalists were allowed to stay, and continue reporting.

U.S. Army North[edit source | edit]

In 2012 McQueen was assigned as Deputy Commander of United States Army North. He served in this position until retiring in September, 2013. He received the Distinguished Service Medal at his retirement.[7]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_McQueen

Wiki: Richard Zuley

Richard Zuley is a former American interrogator. He developed a reputation as being able to coerce confessions from suspects during his 37 years with the Chicago Police Department. Zuley was also an officer in the United States Navy Reserve, and was placed in charge of the interrogation of Guantanamo captive Mohamedou Ould Slahi.[1] Slahi was one of a small number of Guantanamo captive for whom Secretary of Defense authorized the use of extended interrogation techniques that legal scholars and human rights critics have characterized as torture...

...After his retirement, multiple inquiries into overturned convictions that had relied on confessions he coerced triggered the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office to plan to subpoena Zuley's entire complaint history.[3]

Zuley faces multiple lawsuits from individuals who claim he framed them, or beat confessions from them.[3] Lathierial Boyd, who launched one lawsuit, claims Zuley framed him for a killing outside a nightclub in 1990. Anthony Garrett, who received a 100-year sentence for killing a seven-year-old boy, alleges Zuley beat his confession out of him.

Michael Homan, reporting in the Indiana Daily Student, wrote that Zuley had run covert interrogation site for the Chicago Police Department as bad as the CIA covert black site interrogation sites.[6][not in citation given]...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Zuley

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/18/american-police-brutality-chicago-guantanamo

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/19/chicago-police-richard-zuley-abuse-innocent-man

YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRUTH - 4 days inside Guantánamo