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The CIA’s Secret Detention Program

The detention and interrogation program in which Jabour was held was operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  It was authorized under a classified September 17, 2001 presidential directive, and operated in close secrecy for nearly five years.³¹

As Jabour’s case illustrates, prisoners in the CIA program have been “disappeared,” held in acknowledged detention in secret facilities, and barred from communicating with family members, legal counsel, or anyone outside. Although the International Committee of the Red Cross has repeatedly expressed concern about being denied access to detainees in CIA custody, the US government has refused to allow them to visit such facilities.³²

In a televised speech in September 2006, just before the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush publicly acknowledged that the CIA had been secretly detaining suspected terrorists in facilities outside of the United States.  The president said that he could not reveal “the specifics of this program, including where these detainees have been held and the details of their confinement.” Instead, he dedicated most of the speech to lauding the program’s accomplishments.  While making the increasingly hollow claim that “the United States does not use torture,” he described several cases where the CIA used “an alternative set of procedures” to obtain information from detainees who were resisting interrogation.  Bush said:  “I cannot describe the specific methods used—I think you understand why—if I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.”³³

As discussed below, interrogation methods reportedly used in CIA secret prisons included torture and other cruel and inhuman treatment—and were anything but lawful.

Discovering the Program

President Bush’s speech was the most important official acknowledgement of the CIA’s detention program, but it was not the first time that information about secret CIA detention had been made public.  Indeed, reports that suspected al Qaeda operatives were being held by the CIA in “undisclosed locations abroad” began circulating in 2002.³⁴

The first official acknowledgement that such reports were true came with the federal prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui for the September 11 attacks.³⁵  In February 2003, the federal district judge hearing the Moussaoui case ruled that the government had to allow Moussaoui’s lawyers to question Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was allegedly a key figure in the September 11 attacks, and who had information that tended to exculpate Moussaoui from responsibility in the attacks.  Because defendants have a constitutional right of access to exculpatory witnesses in the government’s custody, the government had to admit that it was holding bin al-Shibh in a secret location overseas. The government argued, however, that allowing Moussaoui’s counsel to question bin al-Shibh would seriously interfere with bin al-Shibh’s interrogation.  Although the district court rejected the government’s claim, ruling that questioning via closed-circuit video should be allowed, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit later reversed the district court’s decision and barred all access to bin al-Shibh.³⁶  A similar issue later arose in the federal prosecution of Uzair Paracha.³⁷

More detailed and direct accounts of the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program emerged in 2004 and 2005 from former detainees. Most notably, in June 2004, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, told German police about his kidnapping, abuse, and secret detention. El-Masri was arrested by Macedonian agents on December 31, 2003, on the Serbia-Macedonia border, held secretly for nearly a month in a hotel in Skopje, then picked up by US agents and flown to Afghanistan, where he spent four months in unacknowledged detention. At the time the story was made public, el-Masri’s lawyer said that he believed el-Masri had been held by the CIA. When journalists interviewed CIA officials regarding el-Masri’s claims, the officials refused to either confirm or deny that he had been held.³⁸

Later in 2005, three Yemeni former detainees told Amnesty International about their experiences in CIA detention, and a number of Guantanamo detainees told their legal counsel that prior to their transfer to Guantanamo they had been held in a secret “dark prison” in Kabul, Afghanistan.³⁹  All of these accounts had certain common characteristics, including descriptions of interrogators and prison directors who spoke American-accented English, black uniformed and masked guards, flights in which the detainee was placed in diapers and wrapped up like a package, and various forms of physical and mental abuse.

Relying on flight logs and information from plane spotters (people who watch aircraft arrivals and departures at airports), journalists and human rights investigators were able to trace a number of the flights by which the CIA allegedly transported prisoners.⁴⁰

Yet, despite mounting evidence of the CIA’s secret prison program, the Bush administration refused to discuss its operations.  Indeed, it was reported that the administration did not describe the program in any real detail to the congressional intelligence committees tasked with providing oversight of the CIA’s activities.⁴¹  Even when the Washington Post published a front-page news story describing the history and scope of the detention program in November 2005—a piece reportedly based on accounts by current and former intelligence officials—not a single administration official spoke about the program on the record.⁴²

According to the Washington Post, the secret detention program had at various times included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe.  Although at the request of the US government the Washington Post did not name the Eastern European countries where the prisons were located,Human Rights Watch released information pointing to Poland and Romania as among the sites of detention facilities.⁴³ A few weeks later, ABC News reported that at least 11 “High Value Targets” had been held in CIA custody in Poland.⁴⁴

Based on information from current and former intelligence sources, a number of journalists have described the interrogation methods used in CIA facilities.  These “enhanced interrogation techniques,” as the CIA reportedly called them, included extended sleep deprivation combined with forced standing, as well as exposure to extreme cold.⁴⁵  The CIA also reportedly employed waterboarding, a torture method by which the prisoner is strapped to a board and made to feel like he is drowning.  It is believed that several of the 14 prisoners transferred to Guantanamo in September were subject to waterboarding.⁴⁶

The Pakistan Connection

Jabour’s experience of arrest in Pakistan and subsequent “disappearance” into CIA custody was far from unique. Indeed, it appears that a large majority of the prisoners held by the CIA were originally arrested in Pakistan, often during joint U.S.-Pakistani operations. Of the 14 high-level CIA detainees transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006, for example, nine were picked up in Pakistan.⁴⁷  And most of the other people who are thought to have been in CIA custody were arrested in Pakistan.

The Pakistani authorities have made no secret of the fact that they have handed over several hundred terrorism suspects to the United States, boasting of the arrests and transfers as proof of Pakistan’s cooperation in US counterterrorism efforts.⁴⁸  While the majority of these detainees were transferred into US military custody in Afghanistan or at Guantanamo,⁴⁹ or were transported to third countries via the CIA’s rendition program,⁵⁰ some substantial number of them disappeared into CIA custody.⁵¹  Family members have filed suit in the Pakistani courts in some cases, but without knowing whether their relatives remain in Pakistani custody, are in US custody, or are being held elsewhere.⁵²