Did you see Time’s leaked interrogation report of Detainee 063? I didn’t either– only 10 blogs or so have linked to it. I saw it on the train ride home, because the guy next to me had printed it out and was leafing through it (I thought he was a government worker at first and I was reading secret information).
This guy is claiming that the unceasing interrogation made him confess to things he didn’t do. It’s kind of hard to tell. For example, he was shown the 9/11 video about three times a day for many weeks, with agents whispering in his ear to confess the entire time. They also have a billion variations on “good cop, bad cop” and “are you a real Muslim”.
SGT R runs a harsh pride & ego down approach. ENS C (as rehearsed earlier) comes in and asks SGT R what he is doing. ENS C says “Don’t talk to him like that, he’s a human being.�? SGT R says “Human beings don’t kill 3000 people�? and storms out.
Lead started playing 9-11 video. Detainee asked to go to bathroom half way through the video. Lead told him he would have to wait because she thinks he just asks for bathroom breaks just to get a mental break.
Shown 9-11 video. Detainee protested about the music on the video.
Detainee hooded and taken to new primary interrogation booth that was decorated with photos of 9-11 victims, the U.S. flag, flags of coalition forces in the global war on terrorism, and red lighting. Detainee was subject to loud music for 20 minutes.
As you continue to read through the transcript, you start to wonder… what sort of nutcases thought these techniques would be good for extracting a truthful confession?
2115: Interrogation team left detainee to watch 9/11 video
2200: SGT M taped pictures of the 9/11 victims on detainee’s body
2305: Detainee proclaimed his innocence and said he would pass a polygraph test.
Interrogators ran puppet show satirizing the detainee’s involvement with Al Qaida.
Interrogators gave detainee rules for the evening. 1) No talking. 2) Face forward. 3) Don’t ask for anything. Detainee almost immediately began to speak. The interrogators screamed at detainee until he stopped. Detainee was reminded of his worthlessness as a human being. He was reminded of the fact that his standard of living is less than a Banana rat.
Told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteem because dogs know right from wrong and know to protect innocent people from bad people. Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog. Detainee became very agitated.
Detainee then address the following problems to lead:
1. Being subjected to pictures of swimsuit models and questioning. – he began to cry quietly at this point.
2. Metal chair is too stiff and uncomfortable.
3. The overall treatment here. He cannot handle the treatment much longer. – when he made this statement he began to cry and sob out loud.
Lead asked him if he had any other problems and he stated that the other problems he could deal with on his own. Ie: physical pain, sleeping arrangement etc. What he could not deal with much longer were his being subjected to the pictures and the treatment day after day.
At other points, the detainee did revealing things. Interestingly, these were mainly during points when they were being easy on him and just chatting about subjects he wanted to talk about.
Detainee was ignorant of historical events outside of the geographic region of the Arabian Peninsula. Detainee gave names of Islamic scholars that said music was forbidden and the interrogator agreed to review their claims.
Detainee taken to bathroom and walked 10 minutes. Topic of music was run with Koranic verses that support that music is not forbidden. Detainee was given an Koran to read along with the interrogators to see the verses for himself. It should be noted that the detainee had trouble finding verses in the Koran as if he had rarely read a Koran himself. He also read the Koran as any other book where devout Muslims will “sing�? or chant the verses as they read. Detainee seemed self-conscious about his trouble with the Koran.
Interrogator allowed detainee to choose a topic to talk about. Detainee wanted to talk about dinosaurs. Interrogator gave history of dinosaurs and talked about the meteor that wiped them out, and equated this event with nuclear war. Detainee expresses great ignorance about dinosaurs and space, topics that are taught in U.S. grade schools. Detainee asked interrogator if the sun revolved around the earth.
In the end, I was somewhat convinced of his guilt, but not that the interrogation helped prove it. The slip-ups that he made could be easily explained by the two months of unceasing, intimidating treatment. I also felt pity on the poor ass for sticking to his cover story even in the face of abuse and overwhelming evidence against him, probably because he believed that Al Qaeda were the good guys and he didn’t want to reveal anything about them.
Of course, it’s not like I myself can tell the military what to do. I am only a voter, taxpayer, and citizen, so if they want to use torture, it’s not like there’s anything I can do about it.
One thing I don’t understand is why some people think this transcript reveals Club Gitmo. I wonder if he’d like to be in Mr. Terrorist’s place? Maybe we’d hear less complaining and protests of innocence from such a tough-necked guy.
“Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog.”
I laughed when I read that.
[...] I also found in that list shiishit, and here’s a link of an intesting blog post. I dont agree with him/her, but its worth a read: http://shii.wordpress.com/2006/03/07/detainee-063 (no link here) here’s an interesting link I found about Muslims In China. I was quite shocked to see it, and I’m sure most will to: [...]
BURTMUH, we laughed at this and the deterioration of your laws and constitution… your boys die for nothing…
Video shows Ghraib-like torture by sheriffs lead to man’s death, say groups, family
Jennifer Van Bergen / Raw Story | July 26 2006
On Feb. 6, 2006, Jessie Lee Williams, Jr., a 40-year-old black man in a Southern Mississippi jail, was allegedly hooded and hog-tied by police, beaten about the head and testicles and ultimately died from blunt injuries to the head.
The coroner determined the death was a homicide. The local sheriff indicated law enforcement agencies were investigating and that the individual targeted by the investigation is “no longer employed by the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department.”
Despite the fact that the beating was videotaped, no arrests have been made.
Williams’ family has filed a $150 million civil suit for damages. Last Friday, the sheriff’s attorney in the Williams case asked the court to halt the civil proceedings until the criminal investigation is complete in order to avoid self-incrimination.
The complaint documents numerous previous incidents of abuse in the Harrison County jail booking room where Williams died, including beatings, hooding, use of a restraint chair – called “the torture chair” or “the devil’s chair” by inmates – and a technique similar to water-boarding where a sheet was wrapped tightly around the head of a man in the restraint chair and water was poured into the breathing hole.
In April, US Attorney Dunn Lampton told reporters, “We’re moving at a good speed.” Lampton told Harrison County Sheriff George Payne not to discuss the investigation with anyone and Payne has not returned RAW STORY’s calls.
US Prisons the Training Ground for Military Detentions?
A recent Amnesty International report covered by RAW STORY revealed that nearly 200 African-American men in a Chicago prison have alleged torture between 1971 and 1991. The report concluded there are troubling similarities between detainee abuse allegations in US military prisons around the world and US prisons at home.
Williams’ treatment, like that of many of those in the Chicago cases, is similar to reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib, the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other US detention facilities in the Middle East. The nurse’s notes in Williams’ case states that Williams was placed in a restraint chair, hooded, sprayed with pepper spray, and had blood coming from both ears. He was told by the restraining officer that the officer would kill him, after which the man choked him until he couldn’t breathe.
Based on witness statements, the attorney for the Williams’ estate commissioned an artist to create an illustration which shows Williams being carried hooded and hog-tied.
The caption reads, “This picture is a depiction made of the Harrison County Adult Detention Facility’s booking room on the night of February 4, 2006, based upon witness statements, in which Jessie Lee Williams, Jr. was hog-tied, shackled (hands to feet), sack on his head, blood dripping from the beating, and carried like a human suitcase – soon to be slammed/dropped on his face – two times.”
Such treatment closely resembles methods depicted in photographs of detainees at Abu Ghraib.
James Johnson, an Australian with a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters Degree in Psychology, who has been an advisor to the Australian government and has been researching the US penal system for eleven years for a book, says, “I believe that the principal method of torture applied in the prisons is psychological. However outright brutality is used quite regularly.”
Johnson provides examples from letters inmates have written him: solitary confinement, rapes, beatings, use of restraint chairs, hooding, shackling to the floor, sleep deprivation, extreme air-conditioning, reduction of food allowance, refusal of medical treatment, electric cattle prods, TASERs and water-boarding. Williams suffered serious burns on his back from being shot with TASERs.
“Everything you have read about them using in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo is used in American prisons,” Johnson avers. “ That is where most of the torturers gain their experience.”
The purpose, he says, is “to destroy the mind.” Johnson notes that all these methods were used “before the official policy of the American administration became known to the public.”
Human rights violations under international law
International human rights lawyer, Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler, who practices in the Middle East and teaches law at Tel Aviv University, told RAW STORY that if Williams was killed as the consequence of being beaten by law enforcement authorities, as alleged, “his right to life and right to humane treatment (prohibition of torture) would have been violated under both the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man.”
“A case could be brought to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention or the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” Doebbler adds.
After a recent Supreme Court ruling in which the court held that the military tribunals used on enemy combatants at Guantanamo violated the Geneva Conventions and laws of war, the Pentagon pledged to abide by Common Article 3 of the Conventions, which establishes minimum standards of humane treatment for detainees.
Joseph Margulies, the lead counsel in another Guantanamo case in which the Court decided last year that detainees have the right to due process, noted in a Washington Post editorial, “we know what the administration means by humane treatment.”
“These are the same people who said it was humane to hold a prisoner in solitary confinement with no human contact except interrogators and guards until . . . he became delusional,” Margulies wrote. “Then it was humane to subject the same prisoner to an eight-week series of interrogations that lasted 18 to 20 hours a day. Interrogators doused him with water if he fell asleep and forced him to stand at attention for hours at a time if he did not cooperate.”
Even when a detainee’s heartbeat had slowed to 35 beats per minute and he was placed in a doctor’s care, loud music was played in his cell to prevent him from sleeping.
Margulies says, “If this interrogation was not cruel, humiliating and degrading, if it did not offend personal dignity, then the words have no meaning.”